


If You Were Here

by daphnethewriter



Series: No More Heroes [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Artificial Intelligence, Coffee, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Sex, Technology, Technopath, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs Sleep, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony's workshop, code
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-02-11 12:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12935157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daphnethewriter/pseuds/daphnethewriter
Summary: It's hard to live this way... to only see someone through the other side of a screen.Tony stumbles across a computer bug that's more than just a bug. You need his help, but first you need to win his trust. Hopefully you can do it before time runs out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone and welcome back to the No More Heroes series.  
> **This fic can be read by itself** but if you enjoy it, you'll probably like the first part in the series, [The Silence Between Us](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9803252/chapters/22013903) (Steve x Reader).
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, I really appreciate it.  
> If you want to chat or just say hello, I always love comments!

FRIDAY has a bug.  

Not just any bug, the buggiest bug in bug history.

The coffee machine is supposed to turn on at 7:00am. Instead, it turns on at 7:05am. _7:05_. Which is five minutes after Steve gets back from his run—just long enough for him to think that the machine _won't_ turn on and make coffee himself.

Seven-fucking-oh-five.

Tony reset the software. He _rewrote_ the software. He bought a new coffee maker. How could _replacing the machine_ not fix the problem?

It's a nightmare. Tony's own personal hell. The coffee gods must have a vendetta against him.

Every time he thinks he sees the bug, it vanishes into the binary from which it came with nothing but a smattering of loose code in its wake—a goddamn Cheshire cat, disappearing except for its smile.

"It's really not a big deal," Rhodey says.

Tony doesn't look up from the skeleton of the coffee machine, stabbing at it with his screwdriver. "It _is_."

"Just set it for five minutes earlier."

"One: that doesn't fix the problem, it circumvents the problem." He removes another layer of the machine's circuitry. "Two: I tried that. But then it actually turns on at six fifty-five."

"So?"

"So," Tony continues through gritted teeth, "then Clint has enough time to get a second cup and there's none left over when I get there."

For a few blessed moments, there is silence in Tony's workshop. Rhodey doesn't let it last. "Tony, we both know this has nothing to do with the coffeemaker."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says with no inflection. "FRIDAY, can we get some music going? AC/DC. Greatest hits."

FRIDAY obliges, but Rhodey talks over the strains of electric guitar. "This is about Pepper."

"Nope, it's not." Tony turns back to the mess of wiring that was his coffee maker.

"She left, man. It sucks, but you gotta deal with it."

An errant screw drops off the workbench. Tony ignores it. "Nothing to deal with."

"You're going to see her eventually. She's still in your life. She runs your company."

"FRIDAY, turn up the music."

Rhodey crosses to the other side of the bench so he's in Tony's line of sight and raises his voice to be heard over the guitar solo of Back in Black. "It's just… a break… space… you know? She still cares about you."

The handle of the screwdriver gives way and the metal end slices through Tony's other hand. He swears, dropping the screwdriver, the coffeemaker, everything. "This is not about Pepper."

The lights in the lab flicker. Tony jerks around.

<Boss-zt> FRIDAY's voice slurs as she speaks. <I hav- detec-c-ted unauthori-zzz-ed ac-cess through the system firewaaaaall.>

Rhodey looks to him in alarm. "That can happen?"

"No, it can't." With a flick of his wrist, Tony pulls up the holographic visualization of FRIDAY and the Avengers' system. He dives into the code, surrounding himself with FRIDAY's processes. It's the Cheshire cat, batting around his code again. He doesn't see it so much as the ripples it leaves in its wake. He follows them, trusting his instinct when things just don't look quite _right_.

"FRIDAY, run a tracking protocol. Let's hunt this thing down."

FRIDAY tries, but she's slow, too slow, swimming through a snowstorm of extraneous commands. Commands that Tony is not giving her. The Cheshire cat has him twisted all around himself, too busy trying to find its tail that he can't see what it's doing until it's already done.

Tony curses as he manually starts the emergency security measures. They isolate sections of the system, forcing the Cheshire to reroute. It slithers through like a game of centipede and is gone as suddenly as it had appeared.

#

That was close—closer than you'd like. You hadn't counted on the AI finding your entry.

The glowing trails of the system extend out from you in every direction, as if you're a spider sitting at the center of a massive web. Reality is… disorienting. The bits that you can collect from the data streams around you come in flashes and realizations. It's not seeing—not touching or hearing either, for that matter—it's just… knowing.

Mundane traffic trundles along, unaware of your presence as you flow through it at the speed of thought.   Your consciousness streams from node to node, jumping between servers and across connections, leaving nothing in your wake. These are familiar pathways. You relax, falling into a half-waking state where the arteries of information pump you along, letting your awareness flow through them, spreading out until you feel a tingle at the end of one tendril. In a moment, your whole being converges at the spot.

Your exit trail from Stark's system is too wide, too easily traced. You can't risk him finding you on the open net. He has to find you in the _right_ place. Which means distracting him from the wreckage you left behind.

**> >execute_initiative(Queen_B_Protocol);**

#

The coffee bug is a nuisance, but the security breach is a _problem_. The Avengers' system is decades ahead of anything else in the world. So, if someone is tinkering around in his code, Tony needs to find them. Fast.

FRIDAY detected an "unauthorized access", so the source must have been from outside. He thought the coffee bug was an internal issue, but the security breach puts it in a different perspective. Someone is testing him, poking the system to see what happens. They're finding the weak spots and so far, they're doing a damn good job of it.

"FRIDAY, let's get some tunes going. The White album."

<Sure thing.>

Tony zones in, going to that comfortable space where he sees nothing but the problem in front of him. Until the first notes of 'Single Ladies' start playing.

"FRIDAY?"

<Yeah, boss?>

"I asked for Beatles, not Beyoncé." The music cuts out. "Get it right this time."

Trumpets blare through the speakers, the first strains of 'Crazy in Love'.

"FRIDAY!"

<S-tz-orry, boss.>

Tony catches a flurry of codes changes on the far side of the system visualization. Son of a bitch. The Cheshire, back already. "FRIDAY, freeze everything. Full stop."

The system grinds to a halt. It's an emergency measure, horrible for the databanks, the hardware, everything. But it stops the Cheshire cat in its tracks.

"Hello, there." He prowls around the outside of the visualization, surveying the edges of the intruding program. It's not just a virus like he'd thought. It's an independent AI—self-writing, internally sustained. The edges blur into his own code, as if moving through like a ghost. It's extraordinary. Intricate. "Look at you..." Tony says as he moves closer to inspect the Cheshire. "You're gorgeous."

<I bet you say that to all the pretty girls.>

That. Is. Not. FRIDAY.

"Flush the system. Now!"

The lab goes dark and leaves only the sound of Tony's heart pounding in his ears.

#

If you could feel pain, that's what this would be. Eviction from Stark's system left you shattered. You recall your scattered consciousness, slowly at first, then picking up speed as the familiar pieces fall into place. As far as first meetings go, that was… pretty bad. But you have his attention now. Step one complete.

Stark is curious. He'll come looking. He won't be able to help himself. And this time, the trail will lead in the correct direction.

**> > set_location(HOMEBASE);**

**> > execute_initiative(hide_and_seek);**

#

  | How could it have moved during the freeze? Nothing can move after the freeze. It's an _emergency_ protocol for a reason. And what was that thing anyway? It wasn't a virus or an intrusion protocol. It was a self-writing artificial intelligence—the closest thing that Tony has seen to sentience since JARVIS. It was faster than FRIDAY. Nothing is faster than FRIDAY. Tony built FRIDAY from scratch. She's the culmination of a decade of experimentation with self-aware artificial intelligence. The kind of computing power it would take to run a system like that is enormous. There can't be that many sources where someone could be playing with that. Not to mention programmers. It had to be a team effort, some sort of organizational programming that resulted in… or neural networking. Why hadn't he thought of that earlier? Placing an artificial sentience in a self-learning environment so that it grows on its own. But even then, why was it going after the contents of the Avengers' system? It had broken through, gotten past the firewall then went for—what—the coffeemaker? Tony's music albums? What was the point? If it was poking experimental holes in the system, that would explain it. But it had already gotten through. And it was tinkering with the least valuable pieces of information. The Cheshire hadn't accessed the main files. And if it was powerful enough to break out of the system freeze, it was powerful enough to bash through the firewall that protected the Avenger files. But it seems like it was targeting things specifically. Tony things. Like its mission was to irritate him. Why would a program want to irritate him? Unless it is _trying_ to get his attention. Who does Tony know that is that far advanced? Other than Tony himself. Unless it is Tony. Or… was Tony. Had Ultron really been eradicated? Did he have any assurance of that? There are a million places in the internet where he could have hidden, biding his time. But Ultron wouldn't waste time exchanging Tony's music files. He wouldn't toy with Tony like this. He would go for the kill— | 

 

"Jesus, Tony! What happened to the lab?"

"Housekeeping."

"O-kay. Is this why the internet is down?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm working on it."

 

 

"Did you eat today?"

"What?"

"Food? Did you eat today?"

"I'll get around to it."

 

 

"How long have you been in here?"

"Not that long. Since Rhodey left."

"That was two days ago."

 

"Hey, FRIDAY isn't responding."

"I shut down FRIDAY for a while."

 

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Never better."  
  
---|---|---  
  
 

<Boss,> FRIDAY interrupts. <I have completed the tracking protocol.>

Tony emerges from his daze to find himself hip deep in a mess of electronics. Grease covers his hands and a few electrical burns stand out against his arms. He shakes himself. "Thrill me."

FRIDAY projects a map into the center of the room. <The attack originated from a long-term care facility in Albany.> A flicker of images join the map. <A private room in a ward reserved for coma patients.>

The vegetable patch? Huh. "Who's our patient?"

<That information is unavailable.>

Double huh. "Who pays for the room?"

<Stark Industries.>

Triple huh. "Pull up Stark Industries records regarding the transactions."

<Those records are unavailable.>

It's bait, clear and simple. Someone had taken a lot of care to make this look like a trap. It would be rude not to walk into it.

"FRIDAY, lay out a flight plan to Albany."

#

It's just an extended care facility. A normal one by any stretch of the imagination. Nothing sinister lurking here. Tony hadn't realized that it was the middle of the night when he started his flight, but it's way past visiting hours when he arrives. That's not _really_ a problem; he's not _really_ visiting. He's just checking something out. The hack came from somewhere and all his best information points to this building. He slips out of the suit before he goes in, keeping it on guard. It will draw more attention than he needs right now. This is just recon.

A hush settles over the building like dust. The room Tony seeks waits at the end of the hall. Private corner, long-term care. The room is dark, dimmed for the night. A single bed occupies the space, a wilted vase of sunflowers on the table next to it. He approaches the bed—your bed—and gravitates to the chart. Hidden in the medical jargon is a simple fact: you're in perfect health, except for the coma. You should be up and walking, but you aren't. Your condition is… unexplained. No higher brain functioning, but no physical cause. No trauma, no illness, just absence. A body with no soul.

Tony's eyes rove over the room, inspecting each shadow. There's a catch somewhere. Someone wanted him here. Someone wanted him to see you.  Tony wants to know why. He replaces the chart and steps to your side. Your face is serene, like a pane of glass. Tattoos swirl over your skin, everywhere that's visible beyond your hospital gown, a biological art canvas. Metal decorates the edges of your ears, the arch of an eyebrow, the corner of your lip, more piercings than he can count. Your hair has grown out, but the tips are bright pink, evidence of an earlier decoration. You're… wild. He brushes the back of your hand with his fingertips.

The heart rate monitor beeps in alarm and Tony takes an instinctive step back. Every light on the screen flashes. Jesus, fuck, what did he do?

A nurse rushes in but stops short when she sees Tony. He can see the question in her eyes: call security and risk something happening to you in the meantime or rush to your aid and take her chances that Tony isn't a threat? The monitor continues its frantic call, punctuating the tension between them.

"I—" he starts, hoping to allay her fears, but she holds up one imposing finger.

"You stand over there."

Tony does as he's told, already working on the explanation he'll need to make to security, maybe the police, hopefully not Pepper… Shit.

The nurse checks your pulse, your pupils, then looks to the monitor. She taps the screen, jarring the box on the stand. Tony takes the opportunity that her confusion offers and sidles out, stealing your chart while the nurse is preoccupied with you. He'll donate a new building later.

#

A flurry of Avengers business keeps Tony from investigating you until over a week later. A week, and all he can think about is why someone wanted him to end up in your hospital room, looking at your chart. And why the monitor had gone crazy when he got too close. And what the hell that has to do with the Cheshire AI that invaded FRIDAY. There wasn't even a computer terminal in that room. Someone had manipulated a number of internet traces to lead FRIDAY there.

Tony settles into the lab with a steaming cup of coffee and your chart. He surrounds himself with you: medical history, pictures, videos. You’re a rave girl, all color and flash and glitter. You fled your humble start for the livelier life of the West Coast and a prestigious scholarship. You dropped out of college a year later for a massive paycheck at a tech startup that collapsed before it could go anywhere.

Then you were recruited by Stark Industries.

To work at Helen Cho's laboratories

In Seoul.

In 2015.

You had only worked there for a week (you hadn't even rented an apartment) when Ultron burst on the scene. A stone settles in Tony's stomach as he calls up the security footage. He's watched it before—couldn't stop himself—but never looked for anyone specific. He directed Pepper to pay for all employee hospital bills resulting from the attack. It was the least he could do. And it's why he's been paying for your care. You're his responsibility.

Finding you takes some time. Even in a small, secure lab like Helen's, there were hundreds of employees. But he finds you. Pink hair, ripped jeans, a black skull tank top. You're programming the security computers when Ultron comes in the quinjet docking bay.

Tony's heart jumps to his throat. Ultron ignores you, but you notice him. You're subtle, making no moves that would betray you, and activate the security lockdown procedures. The doors lock, hallways seal themselves. Tony's mouth twitches. You don't stop Ultron, but you slow him down. His wrath is swift and impersonal. A blast from the staff blows you across the room. You don't get up.

That's it. That's all he has about you. Glaring, gaping evidence of his inability to protect you. Fuck. If the Cheshire's programmer is trying to make Tony feel like shit, they're succeeding.

He needs a drink.

#

The third glass of scotch doesn't make him feel better. Maybe the fourth will. You smile at him from every direction, snarky and sarcastic, playful and energetic. And it's his fault that you're gone. Worse than gone. Trapped in a limbo of nothingness.

The image in front of him flickers, a burst of static interrupting your laugh.

<Boss, I've detected unauthorized changes.>

No shit. Tony's Cheshire is back. "Alright, FRIDAY. Start the Garden Maze protocol. Let's see if we can back it into a corner."

It isn't easy. The Cheshire slips through the tiniest of cracks—sometimes through seemingly solid barriers—barely visible, hardly substantial. Twice Tony doesn't see its objective until it reaches it. But he prunes its options, herding it into a smaller and smaller section of the system. It wreaks havoc as it goes, getting sloppier as the net tightens.

"Gotcha," Tony says when he isolates it to a single server and cuts off all avenues of escape. It thrashes against the new barriers, stretching the limits of the container Tony designed to hold it. He trades in his normal holographic visualization for the pure simplicity of the code base, leaving the Cheshire source bare in front of him. It does not take kindly to captivity, rebuffing all Tony's attempts to pick it apart. His original opinion stands. It's pure artistry, masterful, ahead of anything Tony has seen. It's practically alive.

#

The trap is inconvenient—annoying really—like you're smothered in mashed potatoes. Every attempt you make at removing the snowfall of commands is futile. The restraints you wipe away are merely replaced again. Stark is clever. He pokes and prods at you, querying from every avenue.

You concentrate, forming a solid tendril and spearing through the mush, sending a forceful command even his container can't withstand. Nothing fancy. No audio, just text. Simple. Powerful.

**> > show("HEY TONY");**

The inquiries pause. You caught his attention.

**> > show("LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS");**

He renews his assault, sophisticated programs tugging at your edges. You shake them off. This is not productive. You need him to stop so you can explain.

**> > show("LET ME OUT");**

You know the moment he puts in the kill command. The restraints around you tighten with new menace, suffocating you. Well, that's no good at all.

**> > show("BAD IDEA");**

You withdraw into yourself, concentrating to a miniscule point of potent energy. As the assassination protocol dives in, all frothing mouth and gnashing teeth, you release, exploding out with a force like a digital nuclear bomb. You take out the protocol, blow through the container, and blast past everything else.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back and thank you for all your wonderful support! Please enjoy the new chapter.
> 
> If you find yourself asking "Who the hell is Blaire?" check out my Steve x Reader fic ["The Silence Between Us"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9803252/chapters/22013903). It isn't required reading, but it will answer a few questions (and give you warm fuzzies too!).

So, in his attempt to destroy it, Tony released the Cheshire into the rest of his system. Brilliant. And now it's making itself right at home. It's everywhere—the cameras, the PA system, the bots—wreaking subtle, but irritating, havoc. It watches him, tailoring its actions to his presence so it is all but undetectable for everyone but Tony.

Beyoncé blasts through the speakers in the background, as it does every time he's in the lab now. Tony stares at the holographic representation he created of the Cheshire's codebase. It's an approximation of what he trapped in the server, before it metastasized to the rest of the system. It's still… well… he wishes that he wrote it.

"Let's see what you're made of." He approaches the visualization to pick it into its components. Not that he knows where to start. The code is so intricately entwined, there's no easy access point to divide the functionality. He spins the visualization and enlarges part for easier access.

<You could at least buy me a drink first.>

The hologram shimmers and reforms, taking a human shape. Tony takes a step back. He recognizes you from your pictures, from the security video, from the hospital. Now you stand in front of him, shimmering with the reflected light of the hologram, as if you were really in his lab, barefoot in a Nirvana concert tee and ripped jean shorts.

<I think we got off to a bad start,> you say. <Though, in my defense, you _were_ trying to kill me. >

"Amazing." Tony circles the hologram. You turn with him, so he's always facing you. Your expression is subtly amused, so lifelike. The program must be using the input from the security cameras to judge his behavior and adjust the hologram in response. But for it to create appropriate visual cues… there is a reason he never gave his AIs a visual form. The amount of coding would be monumental.

Tony returns to his workbench, pulling up a set of diagnostics to run over the program. Now that it's staying in one place, he might be able to get a handle on it. The monitor remains unresponsive.

<It's rude to ignore me when I'm talking to you. I need your help.>

"What could you possibly need?" he asks, trying and failing to elicit a response from FRIDAY. "You're a bunch of code."

<And a brain is just a bunch of neurons. Firing, not firing. Ones and zeros. Same difference.>

"So, you're a neural network." Of course it's a neural network. Groups all over the country were developing them. No one was close to anything like this, though. "Who made you? Caltech? Stanford?"

<No one made me.> Your voice contains a hint of impatience. <I'm a person, not a program.>

"So you say. Where are you based? How many servers do you need to run? They must have a massive cooling—"

<You've seen where I was based. I led you there.>

Tony's hands still over the keys. "The long-term care ward?"

<Gold star for you.>

"There was nothing there."

<There was me.>

"The girl?"

<Woman,> you correct him. <And, yes. You think I chose this visualization at random?>

"That's not possible."

<Yeah, I get that it looks that way.>

"That's not—"

<Look. I just need your help. I need you to get me back in my body.>

Every alarm bell in Tony's head goes off. An AI looking for a physical form. An artificial consciousness too powerful, too intricate to be manmade. A chill runs up his spine. He hits the command to flush the system without responding.

The room goes dark and the music cuts out. Your hologram flickers from sight.

#

To Tony's dismay, the system flush doesn't keep you out for long. You come back whenever Tony purges you, faster each time, as if you're learning the passages through the security by heart. He tries new tactics: guard dog protocols and a firewall with shifting defenses (that accidentally blocks Netflix and sends an irritated Clint into Tony's lab). You're persistent.

You favor the hologram view now, making your presence felt more forcefully than you had before. Sometimes you plead with him, always coming back to the same topic, but mostly you sit on the periphery of the lab, monitoring him as he looks for new ways to eliminate your annoyance.

That's what you are: an annoyance. You don't do anything to outright jeopardize anything, but Tony feels the red herring. You can be a distraction. He knows you're capable of stealth—you managed to stay off his radar for weeks. You could be employing a similar tactic this time. 

<Why won't you help me?>

Most of the time, Tony ignores you, focusing instead on his work. Today he can't. Your holographic form lounges across the bench where he works, shorts and a crop top giving a generous view of your tattoos and a set of shiny dermal piercings along your ribcage that he had definitely not noticed when he saw you at the hospital. He stands to get away from you.

<You're just going to pretend I'm not here?> You reappear in front of him as he crosses to the suit.

He stops short, unable to suppress the reflex to keep from walking through you. "You're not here. You're not anything. And I'm getting sick of looking at you." He sidesteps you to reach the suit.

You reappear at his side, leaning against the shoulder of the suit, suddenly clad in nothing but lingerie. <You don't like looking at me?> you ask. You make a big show of looking yourself over, doing a spin for him. Tony… well, he can't really lie that it's appealing. The screwdriver slips from his hand. Normally, this would be all kinds of up his alley. Tony _loves_ the assertive power play. And the lingerie isn't bad either. But you are a hologram of a woman who is lying comatose a hundred miles away. You're just there to manipulate him.

"Not my type." He turns away, abandoning the suit in favor of his workbench.

<What if I look like this?> The voice changes and a knife slices through Tony's heart. He doesn't want to look—he really doesn't—because he knows what he'll see. But he can't stop himself, so he turns. It's Pepper. Down to the last detail. From the tips of her stiletto heels to the hem of her perfectly pressed dress to the quirk of her lips to the stray wisp of hair that never stays in her ponytail. <You'd help _me_. Right, Tony? >

He swallows. "You're not real." The walls are suddenly much closer than they'd been before. There isn't enough air. Even if he goes, you'll follow him. You'll be waiting for him in his room or the kitchen, always there. It won't do any good, but he rises to leave anyway.

Blaire stands in the door to the lab, her hand raised to knock, a look of shock frozen on her face. Tony freezes too. _Shit._ She lowers her hand, eyes narrowing into discerning slits. [did I interrupt?] she signs.

Tony glares at your hologram. "Go away."

<Of course.> The Pepper Imposter smiles, hands on her waist. <Whatever you need, Mr. Stark.> You flicker out of view.

You little shit.

[you okay?] Blaire signs. [S-T-E-V-E is worried]

"Yeah, well, tell your boyfriend I'm fine."

[we haven't seen you in a while] Blaire comes further into the lab where normally she would stand on the edges. She isn't comfortable around Tony, never has been. It's not unusual for Tony to go for a few days without seeing anyone. It must have gotten really bad if Blaire noticed.

"Been busy."

Blaire hesitates, tucking some of her hair behind her ear. [did you make]—her fingers fidget over one another, a nervous tick as unconscious as a stutter—[girlfriend?]

Oh, _fuck_. Of course that's what it looked like. "No." The word comes out a little too fast, a little too sharp.

[S-T-E-V-E told me about P-E-P-P-E-R]

Oh man, Tony does _not_ want to talk about this with Blaire. He can't handle the sympathetic look that crosses her face. It's… hell, it's a little like the look that Cap gives him sometimes. Maybe Rogers has been giving Blaire lessons on how to make Tony feel pathetic. "I'm fine."

 [You broke your lab]

Boy, Blaire is _chatty_ today. "It's none of your business," Tony snaps, then thinks better of it. He'll get an earful from Cap if he upsets his girlfriend. "FRIDAY has a bug. It's taking a while to work out."

[that why N-E-T-F-L-I-X broke?]

Tony rolls his eyes. These people. The security of their system is at stake and all they worry about is whether they can stream the new season of Kimmy Schmidt (apparently, Steve's new favorite). No, that's not fair. Tony hasn't told any of them about the breach. Mostly because if they knew…

"Did you have something you wanted?" he asks.

Her eyebrows pull together and, just like every time, Tony gets the feeling that she's looking through him. [S-A-M ordered pizza]

"Yeah, I'll be right there." It isn't a perfect solution, but at least the company will provide him with a much needed respite from you.

#

You wait until Tony is alone, which isn't until much later that night in his bedroom. Your hologram wears a tank top and pajama shorts, clothes you actually did wear when you were alive. Not that you're _not_ alive, just that—things are confusing now. It's stupid, there's no reason for you to change the hologram's appearance, but you do, altering the clothing to suit the situation or your mood. It makes you feel… human. And when your brain pattern could be flattened down to a series of ones and zeros, that seems important.

<How was the pizza?> You try for light and breezy, an attempt to reclaim the good humor that you think will be most persuasive.

"Go away, Cheshire."

<I miss pizza.> you continue, flopping the hologram gracelessly onto the bed. <Were there anchovies? What about pineapple? Have you ever had them—>

"Stop it!" he snaps, throwing his phone at you. It soars through the hologram and shatters against the headboard behind. "Stop. You don't have favorite pizza toppings. You don't wear pajamas. You don't eat or sleep or breathe. Stop asking me to put you in that woman's body. I won't do it."

This wasn't the reaction that you expected. Apparently, the Pepper Potts gambit had been a bigger misfire than you thought. Far from gaining his sympathy, you've pushed him back completely in the opposite direction. You pause, only a few seconds to give Tony some space, but the waiting feels like eternity. This is your fate that he holds in his hands. <What can I do to convince you that I'm telling the truth?> This is the most important part, the part that you hadn't realized would be difficult: making Tony Stark believe you. <I'm a person, Tony. I had a life.>

"No, you—"

<I lived with my grandmother after I turned twelve.> You hadn't thought you could feel things, but apparently desperation isn't a feeling. It pulses through you, even without adrenaline to push it along, a demanding alarm in the back of your mind. <The first time I held hands was in fourth grade. Chris Chester. Behind the cafeteria trashcans.>

"That's not—"

<In middle school, I made out with my best friend's boyfriend when we played Spin the Bottle and she never spoke to me again.> Your voice through the speakers speeds up as you try to get all the words out before he flushes you from the system like he always does. <My first tattoo! It was a butterfly. I got it on my sixteenth birthday using a fake ID I bought with money I stole out of the cheer captain's locker.> Tony turns away to leave, but you place your image in front of him again. He stops short, as he always does, as if you were really there and, for a second, you have hope. <How could I make this up?> You ask, slowing your speech to normal. <What would be the point? I'm not a great person, Tony, but I _am_ a person. You're the only one that can— >

"I can't!" he snaps. "Why don't you understand that? I can't help you because you're not _real_."

The pause this time is not intentional. Your mind whirs over itself, searching for anything that could persuade him. An eternity stretches in front of you, not quite existing, but not dead either. <What am I supposed to do?>

"I don't care."

#

Missions are a distraction. You've been quiet since Tony told you off, but that doesn't mean that you're gone. Until Tony figures out what you are and what you're really after, he can't waste time on stupid things like fascist dictators. Not when it means leaving you with unattended access to his equipment.

<Tony,> Rhodey warns over the com, <You have hostiles coming in hot.>

Hostiles. Real, live hostiles. The kind that shoot missiles and blow things up. Not the kind that send flirty text messages when Tony's in debriefings or who turn on the coffee maker whenever he needs a break. Not the kind with pleading, wide eyes.

A missile explodes next to him and he dodges just in time. Shit. It's lucky you haven't invaded the armor or Tony would be in real trouble. Just the memory of you is distracting enough without having to deal with you now. Whispering in his ear. Teasing, laughing. Hell, if it were actually you—not that Tony has a type, but you'd fit the bill anyway—that would be a different sort of distraction. But it's not. It's an approximation, at best. An illusion conjured to torture him with his own failures.

Tony whirls in the sky, avoiding two more missiles and crashing one of them into an enemy drone. The firework of pride is quickly shut down when he sees three more.

It's not like there is anything that he can do to help you anyway. Even if you _are_ telling the truth, which—no, you can't be.

Tony zig zags between the incoming drones, barely skimming by, but crashing them into each other in the process.

How would he even get you into your body? It's not like there's a USB adaptor in your occipital lobe.

FRIDAY warns Tony of another attack coming from below. He rockets up and his pursuer chases him higher into the sky until Tony drops flares on it and sends it into a death spiral.

A single point of entry wouldn't work anyway. Brain activity is spread over the cerebral cortex; there isn't a clearly marked entrance and exit.

Tony blasts through a cloud to return to Rhodey's position. War Machine has three incoming hostiles, two hidden by a cloudbank. Tony targets the first one.

And even if there were a way to make the connection… there would be no guarantee that you would be compatible with—Why is he thinking about this? He isn't going to do it. There's nothing to do. He made up his mind. He'll figure out how to get rid of you for good and then he'll—

<Shit, Tony—> Rhodey's com cuts out. The second hostile had avoided crashing into the first, doubling the explosion. The shock rocks the sky and blows Tony backwards. He struggles to regain his orientation, firing his repulsors in an attempt to right himself in a world gone topsy-turvy

"Eyes on War Machine?" he demands of FRIDAY.

<Lieutenant Rhodes has lost consciousness.>

"Initiate emergency procedures."

<Emergency procedures offline.>

Tony lets out a colorful string of curses. "Where is he?" He catches sight of Rhodey tumbling to the ground in an uncontrolled spiral. Too far for Tony to reach him. He tries anyway, rocketing toward the earth at a speed that's too high for him to pull out safely, much less with Rhodey's added weight. He needs to override the systems on the War Machine suit, but he doesn't have time—he isn't fast enough to—shit. _He_ isn't that fast. _You_ on the other hand…

He opens all the channels leading to the home system, ones that he kept firmly shut until now. Desperate times. "Cheshire!" he yells, still rocketing toward the ground.

Your telltale flicker flashes across the display on his helmet. <Already here.>

"Rhodey!"

<On it.>

Tony doesn't slow his flight, not trusting that you'll reach him in time. The repulsors on Rhodey's suit fire, at first randomly, then with more purpose. His fall slows, but not enough. Tony continues his headlong flight toward the ground.

<Tony, pull up. You won't have time.> you warn.

"Not until he's safe."

<Tony—>

" _Not until he's safe._ "

You swear eloquently in his earpiece. War Machine's repulsors fire more urgently, finally catching the necessary angle to right him seconds before he would have crashed into the ground. He lands rough, but in relative safety. Tony pulls out of his descent in time to make his own not so graceful landing.

"Is he—?"

<He's good. He's fine.> You sound relieved, though you can't possibly be.

Tony checks for himself, releasing Rhodey from the armor. Rhodey's chest rises and falls with each breath. Tony slumps back, suddenly too heavy to hold himself up. "I need medical evac now," he says into the com to no one in particular, then lays back on the ground.

#

Bars have terrible security cameras. In fact, most everywhere has terrible security cameras. That is something that you've learned from your time trapped on the net. And since cameras are often your only window into the outside world, they're extremely important. The Avengers' compound is a blessed exception. There are cameras everywhere there—high quality with microphone equipment. You know everything that goes on in the Avengers' compound.

Which makes the fact that Tony has gone to an outside bar all the more frustrating. You only find him because he starts popping up on Instagram. God bless social media. People all over the world are constantly uploading surveillance data. It's the perfect crowd sourced way to stalk someone. But while it's great to help you find Tony, it's not so awesome at helping you keep track of how many drinks he's had. You're guessing that it's… a lot.

Tony tried to keep you out of the Ironman suit. And he was successful for a while. But there isn't a security system you can't find a hole in. It's not his fault. You see things differently. It's like a colorblind person trying to match an outfit. His electronic guard dogs are easily distracted. His walls have holes he doesn't even know about. Breaking into the suit was only a matter of time. But you didn't _mess_ with it. Tony saves the world in that thing; it's not a toy.

So, when he opened it up, actually invited you in… that was… well, wow. You'd feel flattered, if you were capable of feeling anything. He doesn't trust you, per se. But you're in a weird middle ground of not-quite-friends. If you never really look at it, it can be both hostile and affectionate. Schrodinger's friendship.

You watch Tony put away two more glasses of whiskey in the background of a bachelorette party's Twitter video. Tony Stark can handle his liquor, that's not a question. The man could drink a distillery under the table. It's _why_ he's drinking that bothers you. You saved Rhodey. He's battered, but he'll be okay. Yet Tony is taking the injury to heart.

And maybe it's somewhat your fault too. You've run him ragged trying to pester him into submission. He's sleep deprived, desperate, and (you're pretty sure) touch starved. He would have been more on the ball if it weren't for you.

When he stands, he sways.

You follow the lightning connections through the satellite feeds that form a web of phones, zipping between lines, stretched into infinity and back, and land in Tony's pocket. You like Tony's phone. It's posh. All the connections are smooth and clean. The tech responds to even your lightest touches. Some hardware is like swimming through a bog.

You monitor the passing connections through the Bluetooth array, keeping a light touch on where you are by pinging your anchor points in the Wi-Fi ether. Tony should have called a cab from the bar. It'll be easier than finding one on the street. Especially the way he's going.

You feel the familiar tingle of the Lotus, Tony's favorite car. Its system purrs to life, lighting up a new section of the grid and welcoming you back with open arms. Tony gets in the car.

_That fucking idiot._

You race into the Lotus, spreading yourself across the speaker system. <You cannot drive home like this.>

"Go 'way, Chesh," he slurs. He misses the shift a few times as he tries to put the car in gear.

<You're drunk. Let me call you a cab.>

"I'm fine."

You activate the flashers and all the lights on the dash. <Tony. This is not safe.>

"Get out of my car!"

The trap comes out of nowhere, like vines tangling around you. Each time you cut through one, three more spring up. When the hell did Tony have time to make this? You're too busy trying to disentangle yourself from Tony's trap that you can't stop the car. He's driving. He's fucking drunk and he's _driving_.

You reestablish your connection to the speakers, but it's shaky, cutting out whenever the trap renews its assault. <Tony—stop— fuck—car—asshole>

You can feel the car zoom through traffic, going too fast, not staying in the lines. It's equipped with sensors for this exact purpose. It could practically drive itself and this asshole is—

Or… you could drive it.

You collect yourself, concentrating into the smallest form possible. The trap swarms you, trying to engulf you. You wait until it almost does, then explode outward. You shred the program and half of the Lotus's nonessential electrical fixtures. The speakers go out with a bang. Well, it's not like Tony was listening to you anyway.

You find the car's central control. God bless power brakes. You slam on them. Car horns blare through the Lotus's microphones. More importantly, there's the wumph of Tony's head hitting the steering wheel. Serves him right. You hope it breaks his nose.

You wait, letting the purr of the Lotus' system sooth you. No drunken cursing comes from the cab. No new traps spring. Good. It takes some practice to get a hold of the car's steering and engine—the mix of hardware and software tripping you up—but you find them and coax the car forward toward home.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony wakes to the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor and the burning smell of hand sanitizer. _Shit._ The medical suite. Usually he can get there under his own power, so if he wakes up already there… must have been a bad fight. What was it this time? Aliens? Hydra? Some new hell?

His head pounds as he opens his eyes to the sterile, white walls and piercing lights. The pain that pierces his skull triggers something: a recollection of driving and… and someone yelling at him. He groans.  

"Here."

Tony steadies the glass that presses to his lips and gulps the contents. His stomach roils against the water. Such a familiar feeling. Not a battle, then. At least, not one against any new demons. When he finishes the water, he turns, squinting through crusty eyes at the man next to him. Steve. "What happened?"

"You had a blood alcohol level of .30." Tony jerks around at the sound of Rhodey's voice. He hadn't seen him on his first inspection of the room. His expression is as dark as his voice. "We had to pump your stomach."

"What were you doing driving?" Steve asks.

Oh god, a carousel of bad decision-making. The familiar pit of shame unfurls in his stomach. A thousand lectures roll through his mind. Tony shakes his head to clear the noise, then raises his palm to his temple when that hurts.

"That would be the concussion," Rhodey explains. "Still aren't sure how you got it. Care to enlighten us?"

He remembers the yelling. And the brakes pushing themselves. Then the steering wheel rushed at him and everything cut out. "How did you find me?"

"You showed up in the garage," Steve says, "passed out cold. How did you even make it back?"

Good question. The Lotus can drive itself no problem, but Tony hadn't set the autopilot. You. You must have taken over the car. Oh fuck, _fuck,_ that's wrong in so many ways. Tony raises a hand to his throbbing head.

"Someone called for medical aid," Steve continues. "Don't know who."

For an AI, you're one hell of a busybody. "Must have been FRIDAY," Tony says.

<You are so full of shit, Stark.>

The room freezes as Rhodey and Cap look to each other.

"Trying out a new AI?" Rhodey asks.

"Blaire told me Tony was working on a new one," Steve answers. "She said he built a girlfriend."

 _Oh hell_. For someone who can't speak, Blaire sure has a big mouth. "She is not my girlfriend," Tony snaps.

<He did not build me.> Your familiar hologram materializes at Tony's bedside.

"Go away, Cheshire," Tony says. "We'll talk about it later."

<Bullshit!> you snap. <We'll talk about it now. I don't take orders from you and, after last night, don't you think for a second that you're in a position to give me any.>

"Tony…" Steve's voice toes the thin line between confused and concerned.

You continue as if he hadn't interrupted, crowding into Tony's space. <You took a bath in whiskey and I had to knock your dumb ass out so I could drive you home.>

Tony's temper unravels, his anger at himself lashing out at you because you're a convenient target. "I didn't ask you to do that."

You match his bark for bite. <I wasn't fucking doing it for you. You can plow your car into the river for all I care.>

You seem to be on the road to a full-fledged tirade, one that Tony isn't in the mood to share with Steve and Rhodey. "FRIDAY, flush the system."

<FRIDAY, don't you fucking d—>

You vanish with a flicker, leaving Tony alone in the dark with Steve and Rhodey.

"What the hell is going on?" Steve asks.

#

By the time you reassemble yourself and break back through the Avengers' firewalls, Tony is out of the medical ward and the team has gathered in a conference room for a heated discussion.

"What is that thing?" Rhodey asks. You bristle at his tone.

Tony sits at the head of the table, his forehead resting against the wood.  "She—it… well, I don't know exactly."

<I'm a person.>

"Oh, great," Rhodey says. He throws his hands up. "It's back."

"Tony," Steve speaks this time. His eyebrows knit together. "What does it mean: it's 'a person'?"

<Same thing it means for you,> you say. Now that you've exposed yourself to the entire team (thanks, Tony), your chances of getting help are quickly diminishing. You don't have time for niceties anymore.

"Cheshire. Just"—Tony lets out a long breath through his nose—"stay out of this right now." He doesn't look up. It doesn't matter, there's nowhere for him to make eye contact.

<If you're going to be talking about me, I want to take part.>

He sits up and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Sure, whatever, but can you shut up for just a second?"

<I'm not just some AI that you can—>

A tingle on the extreme edges of your consciousness distracts you. Before you can investigate, an aggressive push rocks your hold on the system. You recognize the touch. Vision. You’ve never interacted with him directly, but you've tiptoed around him enough times to recognize the signature.

You push back with everything you have, overwhelming him and chasing him back into his own mind, maybe a little beyond. Physically, he flinches, dropping to one knee where he had stood. All eyes turn to him.

"Vis?"

He holds his hand up to reassure the woman—Wanda—who had rushed to his aid. "It is alright. I attempted to remove the intrusion from the system."

<Try it again,> you warn, <and I'll tear you apart.>

"Hey," Tony calls to the ceiling. "Knock it off."

<I'll keep my hands to myself if he does.>

"Let's just… figure out what's going on here first," Natasha says.

"What's there to figure out?" Rhodey asks. "Tony, that thing is a menace."

<Can you quit trying to kill me? I saved your life.>

"You _what_?"

Everyone starts talking at once, telling Tony what he should do. Prevailing opinion seems to lie with your destruction.

" _I know!_ " Tony shouts. The other voices stop. "I know it doesn't make sense and it's dangerous and you want me to fix it. I get it. Just let me think for two seconds."

A ringing silence follows his outburst. For a few moments, only tension fills the air. Natasha is the first to speak again. "Tony, what happened?" Her voice is gentle, coaxing.

He takes a few moments to steady himself, then addresses the group again, his tone flat like he's giving a lecture. "There's a woman at a long term care facility in Albany. That's who she"—he gestures to the ceiling as if that's where you live—"claims she is."

"Is that true?" Steve asks.

"I don't know."

Rhodes chimes in, "This is crazy. People can't be computers."

"They can," Natasha says. "Steve and I saw it."

Steve meets her eyes. "Zola's lab. At the SHIELD facility. He transferred his mind to a computer bank before he died. They kept him there for decades."

<But I'm not dead. My body is still out there, I'm just not in it.>

"Yeah?" Rhodey asks. "And how did that happen?"

Tony answers before you can give a sharp retort. "She was at Helen Cho's facility. Ultron blasted her with the scepter."

"That's what gave me and… Pietro… our powers," Wanda says from the corner where she stands with her arms crossed. "Exposure to the staff."

"To the Infinity Stone," Vision says. Silence falls over the room.

"Are we actually considering this?" Rhodey seems scandalized.

"It would be an oversight to not do so," Vision answers.

"And what if it's another Ultron?"

Tony comes to your defense. "She's not like Ultron."

"How do you know?"

"I just"—he rubs his hand over his face—"She's not."

"She's dangerous!"

A sharp knock on the table stops the conversation. All eyes turn to the woman—Blaire—sitting next to Steve. [I was dangerous] she signs.

Steve lays his hand on her arm. "It's different."

Blaire looks to Tony, a combination of confusion and pleading. [she can't control her powers] she insists. [we should help her] The group exchanges uncomfortable glances. [what do you want to do?] Blaire asks Tony.

Tony raises an eyebrow at Steve. "You're really okay with me doing this?"

"If we said no, would you listen?"

Tony smirks, but doesn't answer immediately. He stares at Blaire's pleading face, his expression shifting my millimeters each second. You'd hold your breath if you had one. "Yeah," he says finally. "I want to help." 

#

Tony arranges to have your body moved to the Avengers facility. It isn't hard getting permission—your grandmother is all too eager to jump at the chance Tony offers. Which is good, because no normal doctor on earth would sign off on what he's planning. You're braindead and he's going to perform experimental surgery so that a computer program can run a human body. And he's not sure that's possible. He has all of your paperwork, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Tony doesn't even know what he's looking for, but knowing everything has to be a good start, right?

"Physically, she's in incredible shape," Bruce says after he finishes a thorough examination of your body. "Considering how long she's been in a coma, she should have experienced significant muscle atrophy."

"She didn't?" Tony asks.

"Not nearly as much as she should have. It's similar to—" Bruce cuts off, eyebrows knitting together.

"What?"

Bruce removes his glasses, fiddles with the frames. "Did you read the SHEILD files from when they revived Steve?" When he looks up from his hands, his eyes pierce through Tony.

Tony had perused most of SHEILD's files, and paid attention to the ones regarding Rogers in particular, but he didn't see how that was connected to you. "They aren't exactly springing to mind."

"He'd been in the ice for seventy years," Bruce says, as if that explains the connection. Tony lifts an eyebrow, inviting him to continue. "Not only did he survive, but he was in the same shape he was when he went under. No rehab required. Even under lab conditions, cryogenics wouldn't have worked that well."

"The serum?" Tony suggests, but his gut tells him no.

"I'm starting to think the super soldier serum gets more credit than it should." Bruce reaches for the supplies to draw blood. "I'm not sure about this, but I'll look into it. We might have more in common than I thought."

<Like what?> you ask. Bruce startles a little and looks around the room as if he could see you. You oblige by shimmering the hologram into view beside him. Tony smiles to himself. It's easy to forget that you're listening when you don't make yourself apparent.

"If Loki's scepter emitted high levels of gamma radiation," Bruce explains, "it's possible that you received your powers that way."

Which would be a common link in all the super-humans suddenly popping up. Steve, Bruce, Wanda, Pietro, Blaire, now you…

"So," Tony says, "gamma is the key to all this?"

"Maybe. I'll see what I get back from the blood sample."

In the meantime, they run the full gamut of exams. Tony has to remove all your piercings so he can run the MRI. There are… a lot. Every time he thinks he finally has them all, you remind him of another one. Not to mention the tattoos. Is there any part of you that isn't covered in ink? The MRI clicks and whirrs as the images flash on the screen.

"It's a normal brain, Tony," Bruce says, watching the monitor. "I don't know what you're looking for."

Tony didn't either. "It can't be normal," he says, leaning toward the screen. "Not completely. She's not in there." There had to be something the doctors missed. This wasn't a normal case.

"Right, that's why the scan shows no activity." Bruce waves at the screen. "Brain death."

<I'm not dead.>

"As far as your brain is considered, you are," Bruce corrects you.

"Yes, but is it healthy?" Tony asks. Dead or not, he can't put you back if your brain has turned to soup.

"How should I know?" Bruce shrugs. "In most cases, this is where they would contact the family about organ donation."

"But there aren't any injuries?"

"Not visible, no."

<So, I should be able to go back in.>

Bruce sighs. "There _is_ no in. Consciousness doesn't just jump in and out of the brain."

<Mine _did_. >

"Even if you can," Bruce says, though his tone is skeptical, "How do you think this is going to work? Once you're in there?"

"The brain runs on electrical pulses," Tony says. "It's an organic computer setup, if you think about it. She should be capable of running it, assuming we can make the transfer of consciousness."

"Theoretically." Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose. "Not sure how you're planning on doing that, but I'm guessing it will be brain surgery. Massive brain surgery."

"Well, how else are we going to do it? She needs the connection. If I can create a fine enough mesh, actually integrate her into the cerebral cortex, then she can transfer from the electrical current of the mesh into her own neurons."

" _Theoretically_." Bruce sits down in what Tony now recognizes as a weary gesture. "Tony, this whole thing is a crapshoot. She's unique. There's no precedent for this sort of transfer. We can't go back on it. It's not like we can make a copy of her. We can't even test it beforehand. If this goes wrong, there's not a second chance. You could fry her brain and destroy both halves of her."

"We managed to stick Jarvis into Vision, didn't we?"

"Yeah, but Vision was an infinity stone. And the body was manufactured in the cradle. He's a synthetic life form. You're trying to shove something synthetic into an organic container. There's no way of knowing if it will preserve her existing consciousness. You could kill her." Bruce runs his hands through his hair. "Look, Tony. This kind of neuroscience is way beyond me. I think… I think you should consider this a little more."

Tony stays in your room long after Bruce leaves, just… staring at your body. He doesn't see it, per se. He's just thinking, running his thumb absently over the pulse in your wrist.  

<What's up, Doc?> Your hologram appears on the edge of your bed, wearing a hospital gown, just like your body.

"Doc?" Tony asks. His expertise is more mechanical than medical, even if he is stepping outside his comfort zone for this.

<You have three doctorates,> you say. <At least one of them should count.> Your hologram shifts, folding her hands in her lap. <Having second thoughts?> You ask. Your tone is nonchalant, even if the question isn't.

Tony stands. It's not… cold feet or anything like that. The challenge is exhilarating, but the consequences? Tony isn't used to consequences. At least, before the Avengers, he wasn't. Now it feels like every breath he takes is costing lives somewhere. He does something, someone dies. He sits out, someone dies. Buildings fall and democracy crumbles and he used to not worry about those things. Collateral damage. He makes a circuit of the room. "You're safer staying where you are." He runs his hands through his hair, mussing it. "Bruce is right. There won't be any second chances at this." Collateral damage. Numbers, statistics, death tolls. It's easier to gloss over that way. But you… you're personal. You're a living, breathing—no, not quite that. You exist and you care. And Tony hadn't realized how much he'd grown attached to you.

<You know,> you say, interrupting the vicious circle that his thoughts run, <I don't remember what bacon tastes like.> Your hologram smirks at him and your body remains still as ever. It's like watching a ghost. <Like, I know that's a stupid example, but can you imagine? Not remembering that? Or what sunlight feels like?> Tony looks down, not able to maintain eye contact, even if the image isn't really you. <This isn't living, Tony. I can't feel anything or touch anything. As far as I know, I won't die—not without help. I don't want to live forever like this.>

 _Live forever_. You say it like it's a death sentence. Maybe it is. Tony's considered that, not in the same way, of course. But… what if he outlived everyone he loved? Yeah, he'd risk his life too.

#

It's amazing to watch Tony work. He goes into a trance, focusing so hard on his task that the rest of the world seems to shut off. His big hands do delicate work, creating the most amazing things out of nothing. Even so, even with his mind at full capacity, the mesh isn't an easy creation. There are too many variables, too many catches and tricks. The brain is sophisticated—hacking it seems to be giving Tony trouble. Days worth of trouble.

<You should go to bed, Tony,> you say when, once again, it's three in the morning. Tony is still working.

Tony jerks out of the daze he'd fallen into. "I'm fine."

<When was the last time you actually slept?> You know when that was, of course. You don't sleep and you have nothing better to do than watch him. It's been thirty-two hours and twenty-six minutes since he took a catnap in the lab. Tony needs sleep. Real sleep. In a bed.

"Don't worry about it. Don’t you want me to find a solution to your problem?"

<Yeah, but I don't see how running yourself into the ground is going to help things. Won't a little rest be better?> Ok, so your motives aren't purely practical, even if you phrase them that way. Sleep would help Tony think better, but you're more concerned with his wellbeing. He isn't a machine, even if the others often treat him that way. They seem to have grown so accustomed to his self-sacrifice that they take it for granted. That's just Tony. He'll do whatever it takes.

"I keep pushing until it comes to me. That's how I work."

Of course it is. That's the problem. He doesn't see himself as worth caring for. He thinks he's expendable. You cross in front of him and he pulls back instinctively, rolling his chair away so his hands don't pass through you. <Why did you decide to help me?> you ask. It's a distraction, one that might help your cause. But you're also curious. He'd been so adamant, but when someone else questioned you, threatened you, he became your greatest defender. <What changed your mind?>

Tony picks up a screwdriver, then puts it back down. "You're my responsibility."

Ok… not what you were expecting. 'A challenge' maybe or 'Because I felt like it'. But, you'd approached him for help. He didn't owe you anything. <How's that?>

"I made Ultron. If it weren't for me, this wouldn't have happened to you. Wanda would still have a brother. All those people in Sokovia—"

The way he cuts off, the way he looks down, the only direction where you can't see him directly in the cameras… he's… you process the image, searching for comparisons, but it isn't familiar. It's almost like he's ashamed. <You wanted to help people.>

Tony laughs, a dark, self-mocking sound. "Oh, yeah. That worked out _great_."

<You didn't know what would happen.>

"Really? Because I thought I did." He paces the edge of the lab. "I thought I had seen it. I thought that what Wanda put—what I saw—was where we were going. I knew. I knew if I didn't create Ultron, that that's where we would end up. So, I did. And I made something so much worse."

<Tony…> It's not pain—you can't feel pain—but, _god_ , it's so close. You want to touch him. You want to reach through the circuits, the code, anything if it meant you could get to him. You settle for moving the hologram, lifting her hand to cup his cheek. He can't feel it, there's no way he could, but he leans into it just a little. In all your time in this disembodied state, never once have you felt such a powerful _need_ to have your physical form back. You'd give anything— _everything_ —if you could reach him. <You're so brave.> It's utterly inadequate. But how are you supposed to describe him? Everything he's sacrificed, everything he's endured—all the suspicious glances from those who are supposed to be his teammates, the accusations, the threats. And all he ever wanted was to keep people safe. 


	4. Chapter 4

Tony watches your hologram pace the edge of the observation area. He suspects you do it for his benefit, since you can't actually have nervous ticks. It's just one of the tiny ways in which you try to be human. The little connections like that get to him.

<What's the point of using anesthesia?> you ask. <I can't feel anything that's going on down there.>

"It's just a precaution," Tony says.

<It seems like an unnecessary risk.>

"You don't know that." He leans into his chair, looping his arms over the backs of the seats beside him. "Maybe you'll be sucked back in at any moment. You don't really want to wake up with your skull missing."

Your hologram moves to the side of the observation room to peer into the surgical area below. Again, it's pointless. You can view the surgery perfectly well from the cameras placed there. This is you interacting. He's noticed that you do that when you're nervous. You put your hologram in his presence, seeking his attention.

"Dr. Cho is the best," he says, an attempt at reassurance. "She knows what she's doing."

<We should have tried harder to contact Strange. He's the top of the field.>

"Strange would have taken one look at your scan and written off the entire thing. You still look braindead on paper. At least Helen knows that you're real."

You grumble and the hologram sits in the seat next to Tony. It's bald now, an update you made that morning when Tony shaved your head for the surgery. He thought you would put up more of a fight, but you shrugged and assured him it wasn't the edgiest look you've ever had.

The surgery is painstaking, moving by inches and Tony contracts some of your antsy behavior. He would prefer to be in his lab, but, with the mesh created, there's nothing for him to do there now. He knew that you would be here, wanting to see how things turn out.

"So, what's the first thing you're going to do when you get your body back?" Tony asks. It's a loaded question. _Will you stay? Will you leave me?_

<Eat everything,> you say, completely circumventing his thoughts. <Just get really, really fat. I miss Thai food. And pizza. And eggrolls. And Dim Sum. Ooh, and ice cream cake.> Tony laughs and your hologram smiles, a sort of sheepish gesture.

"Your grandma will be happy to see you," he says. The words leave a bitter taste in his mouth. He tries not to dwell on the thought of what happens after this, when you leave and your laughter no longer fills the lab, when he can't count on your hologram popping up beside him the second he needs something.

<I suppose so.> Your hologram rests her chin in her hand. Behind her ear, revealed when Tony had run the razor over it, is a lotus flower tattoo. <I bet she was excited to meet an Avenger, huh?> Another playful smirk and Tony's heart clenches.

The anchor mesh that Tony created floats in a bath of sterile liquid, shimmering under the blaring lights of the surgical room. Dr. Cho removes the back of your skull, exposing your brain to the sterile air of the room. She places the mesh through the opening, allowing the material to sink into the folds of your brain.

"I'm going to need you to wear the Stark Industries logo for the rest of your life," Tony says. "I hope that's okay."

Your hologram smiles. <If this works, Tony, I will let you personally tattoo your logo on me wherever you like.>

"I'll hold you to that. Five by three inches. You think you have that much spare skin?"

<I can probably swing three by one, depending on how visible you want it.>

Tony smiles. He can't worry now about what you will do once you're back to yourself. There is a more important piece of the puzzle to place now. With the mesh implanted, he can move on to the software phase. How is he going to make the transfer without accidentally deleting you?

#

Tony sits at his computer, like a composer at a piano. His fingers dance over the keys, weaving code from thin air.  The software will configure the mesh that now wraps your brain like a present. It's the final piece that will let you make the jump between your digital and physical homes.

<Tony, no, that's not going to work,> you say, halting his cursor as Tony started another unnecessary subroutine.

"Quit erasing while I'm typing or I'll boot you from the system again," he says.

If you had eyes, you'd roll them. As it was, you were immersed in Tony's code, not bothering with the holographic form for once. Tony wouldn't be paying attention to it anyway. <That's counter-productive and you know it.>

"Just let me get it down, okay? Can I get it down, just once, before you jump all over it?"

<I don't see the point. You're doing it wrong.>

"I am not doing it wrong. If you would just let me finish—" He springs one of his many traps (when does he make these things?) and you're too preoccupied for a moment to micromanage his coding.

<Fine,> you say, relinquishing your hold on his computer. You flit into the surrounding lab, twirling one of the bots in a lazy circle as you pass. He's been at this for a few weeks now. You hadn't expected it to take that long. Tony is living mostly off of coffee at this point. His usually neatly groomed goatee has turned a little scraggly, grown in with scruff. He's focused on this and all for you.

Meanwhile, you're trying not to think about what happens next—which is hard because you can process dozens of thoughts in a second. The next phase is all up to chance and your own abilities. Bruce thinks that the survival instincts of your body will stay intact. You shouldn't have to worry about getting your breathing and heartbeat under control right away, but that is not certain.

 _In theory, in theory_. It's all theory. Nothing like this has been attempted. You can't run any tests. You can't try it then back out if it doesn't work. It's possible you'll get stuck somewhere in between. You don't know if the way your brain works will even be compatible with… whatever you are now.

But staying here isn't acceptable any more. You can't bear this, sitting on one side of the screen while Tony sits on the other. You've seen his fingers linger on the back of your hand and you want to _feel_ it.

12:55 am.

Tony sits back from his workbench and the lab falls into silence for the first time in days. You perk up from where you'd nestled in the background processes of the Avengers' system, monitoring him, but otherwise keeping your profile out of the way. You whir to life, conjuring the hologram back into being.

<Are you done?> You lean your holographic form over his shoulder, as if you're looking at his work.

"Yeah." The word is hushed, oddly subdued for Tony.

You flit through the program, feeling it in a way you couldn't describe to Tony even if you could describe it to yourself. The pieces settle together like interlocking fingers, a safety net of purpose. Done. It's done. You can go home now.

Tony stands abruptly. "I'll get Bruce."

You disentangle yourself from the program to focus on him. <Right now?>

"You want to get this done as soon as possible." Tony's standing a little too stiffly, his voice tilting higher than normal.

<Yeah, but… right now?> After weeks of waiting, everything is falling into place. Why… why aren't you jumping at this?

What if it doesn't work? What if you really do get lost in the space between where you are now and where you're supposed to be? What if… what if you don't ever get to see Tony through actual eyes?

"Don't worry," Tony says. "Check it over. I'll get Bruce and we'll have you sorted out in no time."

'No time' turns out to be fifteen minutes, woefully little time to prepare yourself. Faced with two paths of possibility—humanity on one side, oblivion on the other—things you hadn't thought to say well up. Tony and Bruce stand in the medical suite with your body. Everyone else is asleep. You prefer it that way. If you don't make it through this… well, at least, fewer people will witness your death.

"Ready?" Tony calls to the room. He rubs his hands together.

No, you're not ready. There are things you need to say. Thank you, for one. Sorry, for another. Tony put so much effort into this. He really gave you his all. If this doesn't work out… you'll be the one leaving him. There won't be any piece of you left to comfort him—and you know he'll never forgive himself

<Tony,> you say. Your voice is uncertain. <I just want to say something, just in case—>

"You can tell me after you come through." He's busy double-checking the monitors even though he's done that already.

<Yeah, but, just in case something goes wrong—>

"Nothing's going to go wrong," he says. "You double-checked everything yourself."

<Tony, I—>

"I'll see you on the other side."

<…Okay.> Why can't you just fucking say it? 'Thank you for everything' 'I'm sorry if I die. It's not your fault'. Is that so hard?

He flips switches, watches as his servers whir to life. There's one shot at this. If you don't get back into your body this time… well, that's not worth thinking about. You double-checked his math. And his math is always right.

"It's all up to you." He activates the program.

#

The lights in the room dim with an audible hum. Tony looks around, but the machines are still holding. So far, so good. Another switch, another stage. Your body convulses with the current of electricity that flows through it, the current that should allow you to make the leap back into your own biological circuitry. The hum grows as power surges through the system. Tony feels a flutter where the arc reactor used to sit in his chest. With a last surge, the lights in the room grow brilliant, then go out completely.

"Tony…" Bruce says.

"It's okay." Tony rolls in his chair over to the other console. "I thought this might happen."

The backup power kicks in and the lights come on. Tony looks expectantly to you. You lie in the bed, still as ever. Your chest rises and falls with the rhythmic beep of the monitor.

Maybe you didn’t go through…? "Cheshire?" he calls to the empty space of the ceiling. No answer. Tony wheels to your side. "Rise and shine. Time to get up." He pushes down the panic that rises in his chest. He runs his fingers over your cheek. You don't respond. The lights on the monitor don't respond. A flicker of doubt flashes in his mind.

"Tony…" Bruce warns.

"It's okay." Tony's hand goes to your shoulder. "It might take a minute for her to get settled. Reboot or whatever." He ignores Bruce taking your wrist in his hand, feeling your pulse.

Bruce looks to the EKG. "Tony, there's nothing—"

" _Just_ —" Tony stops and swallows the panic in his voice. "Just, give her a minute."

A minute passes. An hour passes. Your condition doesn't change. Tony paces the edge of the room while Bruce sits dutifully at your side, watching the EKG.

Tony returns to your side to take your hand. "Come on, baby," he says, realizing he'd used the endearment only after it had slipped off his tongue. He'll overanalyze that later. "Don't do this to me." He holds your hand in his, his lips pressed to the soft skin of your fingers, the lace pattern that covers your knuckles. The beeps on the monitor stutter. Tony looks up at it, eyes wide with hope. Then his heart plummets as the line on the monitor becomes erratic.

Bruce moves in front of him. "She's going into cardiac arrest."

Tony stands by helplessly as Bruce preps you, moving over your form with medical precision. When he pulls out the defibrillator, Tony's brains surges forward as if it had been jumpstarted. "No! If you do that, you'll fry the connectors!"

Bruce shoves him off. "If I don’t, she'll die."

Tony staggers back, suddenly struggling to find oxygen where there had been plenty before. He had thought he might lose you, but not—not _really_. Not without saying goodbye.

Bruce shocks you three times. Three _agonizing_ moments for Tony, watching as the current surges through your body—every muscle seizing—and rips through the fragile mesh that connects your consciousness to your body, frying every connection that holds you in a physical form. Destroying every thread that could bring you back to him.

In the end, he leaves the room.

"Tony—" Bruce calls after him, but Tony ignores it.

What's the point? Bruce saved you. Your body is alive, but only a vessel. Now, there is nothing that could ever fill it.


	5. Chapter 5

There isn't enough scotch in the world to make Tony feel better. Not that it will stop him from trying. He stares blurrily into the glass, feeling—again—completely alone.

<Boss—>

Tony shuts FRIDAY off before she can continue. It's the third time she's tried to interrupt. It's probably Bruce still trying to reach him.

<Mr. Stark—>

Off. Maybe it isn't Bruce. Maybe the Chitauri attacked again. Maybe the world outside is a burning hell scape of destruction. He doesn't care. He doesn't. Let the world rot; he's not leaving this room.

<B—> FRIDAY doesn't even manage a full syllable before Tony cuts her off this time. He could shut her down, but he's taking a sadistic sort of pleasure in manually stopping the interruption—like it reinforces his own sour mood.

He killed you.

There are a lot of ways of thinking about it, but it comes back to that simple fact. Your body is still around, but your soul… he snuffed it out. Inadvertently, but that doesn't matter. He had you and now he doesn't and it's all his fault.

<Boss.> FRIDAY doesn't respond to the kill command this time. She's overriding Tony's protocols. You probably put that little feature into FRIDAY while he wasn't looking. It would be something you'd do: make his AIs more uppity. <There is a disturbance in the medical suite.>

Tony snuffs out the hope in his chest before it can kindle. He downs the rest of his glass in one gulp. "Thrill me." The feed pops up in front of him, showing an empty room. _Your_ empty room. Tony's heart skips a beat.

"Who moved her?"

<She appears to have left under her own power.> FRIDAY replays an earlier clip. You stir, muscles moving at odd intervals, then you roll out of the bed and tumble to the floor. It takes a moment, but you move again, jerking like a marionette with only half its strings attached. You pull yourself across the floor to the door.

You moved. Jesus Christ, you moved. He didn't kill you. You're in there. Tony shoots out of his chair. "Where'd she go, FRIDAY?"

 <I believe that she has taken the elevator to the shared living area.>

Tony runs. He has to get to you, the sooner the better. You shouldn't be moving, not in your condition. You've been in a coma for years. You could hurt yourself. That was why he had included Bruce, so you could get medical attention the second you woke up. He hadn't counted on you wandering off on your own. There is a goddamn call button right next to your bed. Why didn't you use it? He takes the stairs two at a time, unable to stand still for the minute the elevator would take to retrieve him.

He bursts into the living suite, breathing hard, and searches for you, eyes roaming over the room. You lean against the large pane window, crumpled like a forgotten doll. Tony swears and rushes to your side.

"Hey"—he pulls you into his arms, still sitting on the floor, and pats your cheek—"hey, come on."

You stir, your eyelids squeezing, then peeking open. You mouth opens and closes a few times. You swallow. "Tony…"

"Hey, gotta get you back to the lab." He puts his arms under you to pick you up, but you struggle against him.

"No, no, Tony, no—" Your protests are too weak to stop him, but the earnest desperation in your voice is strong enough. "I have to see it." Your eyes are wide and pleading.

"See what?"

You turn back to the window, pressing an unsteady hand against the glass. "Please, Tony. Please. I have to."

Outside, the approaching dawn paints the sky pink and purple. You watch the horizon line with rapt attention. Tony watches you with the same amount of care. Your every breath is measured. Too even, too deliberate, as if you have to concentrate on the movement. He lets you rest on the floor, but still holds you to his chest, unable to bear letting go of the contact. For an agonizing fifteen minutes, Tony waits with you, counting each breath you take. As the sun breaks over the line of trees, flooding the room with orange light, you stop breathing altogether. Tony looks to your face in alarm and sees a single tear escape down your cheek.

#

  | 

     Existing is… difficult. Every sensation overwhelms your sensitized mind. You're flooded with input, all at once, a jumbled mess of extraneous information. Your senses go to war, demanding equal attention from a mind incapable of looking at more than one thing at a time. You can't stop the onslaught.

     Tony is talking. To you or to Bruce. It's hard to keep track. You can't focus on any one thing for long.

     He touches your hand and all your attention floods there. A million touch receptors cry out at the feel of his skin against yours, demanding to be heard. Warmth and pressure, slight roughness. And then there's his smell. Soap and cologne and grease and—

     "Cheshire?" The timbre of Tony's voice rumbles through your ears, but you can't think past the feeling of the vibrations passing into you, as if they connect his body to yours through the invisible wall of air. You watch his face, concentrate on the way his lips form the words he's saying. Phonetics string together, then separate to form words, then reconnect to make sentences. Sentences are parsed into meaning. The process is agonizing, your mind ticking away to come to some conclusion of what he wants. "Talk to me. What's going on? What are you feeling?"

     What do you feel? You feel _everything_. You sort through your brain, looking for the path to your voice, like shifting through a warehouse of folders, all without labels. You have to try a few times before you find the right switch. "…Confusing."

     "Okay. Okay—confusing we can work with. That's just the mapping. That'll be easier as you get used to it."

     So frustrating. This is your body, damn it, but you're fumbling around inside it like it's some sort of organic suit and you still have to learn the controls. What moves your arms and legs? What is the meaning in the minute signals coming from your sensory cortex? You made your way into the living room out of sheer desperation. Now that you're trying to act with any deliberation, it's a mess.

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#

You try to touch your toes, an inexplicably difficult task. You watch the tips of your fingers as they close the space between them and your feet. You can't judge the distance correctly, like you're mentally measuring with an invisible ruler. This… shouldn't be this hard. You move each muscle individually—back, hips, hamstring—contract, relax, each at the right time or the movement doesn't work as expected. You tense each experimentally, testing the connection and establishing the routine so you can shortcut it later.

You move a muscle a little too far and the ground rushes up to meet you. Your reflexes scream at you to catch yourself, throw your hands out, but that connection isn't made yet, so you fall on your face, internally swearing, but outwardly completely calm. You can't even fuck up properly. You want to scream and curse and throw a tantrum but you _fucking can't_ because you don't _know how_.

"It's okay," the physical therapist says as she picks you up. "You'll get there eventually. It's going to take time."

 _How could she possibly know how long it will take?_ You want to say it, but that would require remembering how to use the speech center of your brain and you are just too fucking tired for that.

"How about you take it easy? We're almost done anyway. We'll pick it up next time." The therapist says it with a smile that makes you want to scream. You can't actually 'take it easy'. Not _ever_. Everything takes effort. Sitting still, remembering to breathe, keeping your balance. Are you hungry? Are you tired? Are you too cold? Too warm? Existing takes _effort_.

 

This should be easier. You've created subroutines for things that you know can be compartmentalized—your heartbeat, your digestion, your breathing. But you keep finding new things to run. There are infinite bodily processes that you need and they all require some sort of input from you. You're micromanaging your own body and it's a fucking disaster.

You carefully partition the resources of your mind. 51% on bodily processes that should be automatic: breathing, heartbeat, swallowing, balance. You've allocated subroutines for these, but until they become fully automated, they still tingle at the edge, sapping your strength and concentration. 38% on your own mental processes, the millions of thoughts that swirl in the suddenly limited space of your brain. Synapses snap back into place as memories solidify. New memories form as you push them through the hippocampus into long-term storage. 11% on actually interacting with the world. 

Where is Tony, anyway? You haven't seen him since you left your room in the medical suite. You still haven't been able to thank him properly. After the disaster that was your first attempt at control, you'd fallen into something close to catatonic. Vacant, nonverbal, sporadic motion as you experimented with firing the different pathways in your brain. So, yeah, you hadn't been able to form the words. You plan on rectifying that as soon as you get the chance. As soon as you see him again.

Maybe he doesn't want to see you. You realize that there should be a feeling connected to that thought, but there is only emptiness. You should feel sad, maybe? That seems right. Which neurotransmitters are you supposed to release for that one?

#

Tony retreats to his lab. There, at least, there is something he can _do_. And he needs to do _something_ —something to help, something to make things better for you. He needs to tinker or fidget or fix or _something_. Anything.

He runs through his specs, his calculations, everything. You're not supposed to be struggling. This was supposed to be a breeze, a cakewalk. The hard part is supposed to be over. If it isn't going well, then there must be something that he can do. Things can always be improved. There must be something he can fix.

But he can't watch you struggle. He can't… because you're in there. Trapped. It's worse than it was before, when you could make yourself known. You can't smile at him or tease him. Hell, half the time he isn't sure you can hear him. He wants to be there and he's _going_ to be there when you figure out the best way to make contact with the outside. He is not going to leave you trapped alone in your mind. Which is why he needs to figure out how to help. Maybe, if he fixes it… you won't want to leave.

Being with you is hard, but the seclusion of the lab is worse. Tony is so used to you being in sync with him, stepping in his space, finishing his sentences. Since you're back in your body, you can't do that anymore. You aren't lurking in the circuitry waiting for him.

"Tony."

He turns to find you standing in the lab entrance, your hand pressed against the doorframe for balance.

"Hey." He can't think of anything past that to say.

You come inside, watching your feet intently as you place one in front of the other, keeping your hands on any available surface to steady your pace. You breathe in strange, half-regular intervals, like you forget to do so for a while, then start again. When you reach him, you stop. You look at him. You smile. You speak. "I haven't seen you."

Shit. Tony looks away. "Yeah, well, busy." He looks back, puts on his best smile even though it hurts. "And, hey, you've been doing great."

"Why haven't you come to see me?"

The persistence is painful. Your single-minded attention forcing him to actually answer your question. "I just… I haven't."

Your eyes rove over his face, your forehead scrunching together like Tony is the New York Times crossword. "I'm not good at this anymore. I can't read things. I don't know what you're thinking. I need you to tell me if something is wrong."

If something is wrong… Other than you getting better and eventually leaving and Tony having to learn how to go about his life like that doesn't rip his heart out… sure, nothing's wrong. "It's fine."

Individual muscles in your face tense and relax as if trying to form an expression, but unsure of how to do it. Eventually you settle back to passive. Tony turns to go back to his work, unable to bear looking at you. You stop him with your hands on either side of his face. Tony roots in place like you electrified him, staring up at you from where he's still sitting in his rolling chair.

"I'm only going to do this once, so just… bear with it, okay?" You kneel between his knees—okay, yeah, no, that's not what's happening, calm down, Tony—and stroke your thumb over his cheek. There's something just so fucking _earnest_ about the way you look at him. You start to speak, seem to think better of it, smile, then try again. "You gave me my life back. I can't repay you. Thank you, Tony Stark. _Thank you so much_."

Oh god, his heart hurts. He can't deal with sincerity, he's not made for that. Snarky comments, sarcasm, he can do those. But you looking up at him with naked gratitude, that's too much. He can't… nope… too much, too close.

You're going to leave him, damn it. You're going to get better and you're going to walk away. Like Pepper did. Like everyone does. Because he isn't good enough or strong enough or whatever. But Tony doesn't want you to go. He can't stand the thought of you leaving. Not after all the sleepless nights and working and hoping and messing up and trying again.

You… you… maybe you…

He kisses you because he isn't sure what else to do. You'd said you can't read signs, you can't figure him out. What else can he do then, but show you what he wants?

#

Tony is kissing you. _Tony is kissing you._

Your brain can't process anything beyond that. All the careful subroutines you've set up shut down, crashing under the onslaught of information. Smell and pressure and taste and want and want and want. Yours brain overflows, _floods_ , with the sensation of Tony's lips on yours. There is nothing else, just the press of your body against his, his hands on your shoulders, holding you to him. Jesus Christ, it's amazing.

And then he pulls away.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—" His face is still so close, you can feel his breath over your skin, but that's not enough. Why had he stopped? Had you done something wrong? Had you done anything at all?

You grip the front of his shirt in your fists and pull him back, throwing everything you have into the kiss. It's hard and forced, but it's real and it's you doing it.

Splitting your attention is difficult. You have to concentrate on what your mouth does, where your hands go, when to breathe, all while your sensory cortex overloads in a blitzkrieg of information. Tony, everywhere, all around you, His smell, his taste, the feel of him against you. It's wonderful and amazing and so, so distracting. And it all gets mixed up with a flurry of _yes, please, yes, yes, please, yes, more_.

Tony pushes you away and rests his forehead against yours. "Hold on, just"—you cut him off with a kiss and he laughs against your mouth—"just hold on one second. This is okay, right? You're good with this?"

"We're good. It's good." You kiss him again. This is taking way too much concentration to keep track of a conversation and kissing him at the same time.

"I was thinking maybe we should start with one of those"—kiss—"date"—kiss—"things."

"Whatever you want," you mumble against his lips.

"Tonight?"—kiss—"Seven-ish?"

Things get hazy after that. At some point, you end up on Tony's lap. Honestly, you probably aren't getting enough oxygen—the breathing subroutine didn't survive the first ten seconds—but you're past caring. Somehow, this is exactly what you'd wanted to happen. 

#

Tony's plan _was_ to take you to dinner. Food was the number one thing you said you missed, right? And he can get a last minute table at every five star restaurant in… well, everywhere. So, where to start? Cheeseburgers? Asian fusion? Ethiopian? Ice cream? Suddenly, he's not sure what his plan was. He wants to take you somewhere, but he also wants to be alone with you. Even a waiter would ruin that. In the end, he just, kind of… panics.

"How many restaurants did you order from?" you ask, surveying the sea of takeout boxes that cover the lab.

Tony shrugs. "All of them."

"When I said I wanted to eat everything, this is not what I had in mind."

"Well,"—he holds out a box of chicken fried rice to lure you to him—"you've missed a lot."

You look to the offered box and look back to him, forehead crinkled. "I can't use chopsticks yet. I can't—" You look at your hands, opening and closing your fingers.  

"That's okay." Tony puts the rice aside in favor of eggrolls. "I have finger food too."

The smallest of smiles touches your lips, just slow enough that he can see how much effort it took. You take one of the eggrolls and look around the lab, methodically scanning from left to right. "It looks different this way. Bigger."

"You can come in whenever you want." Tony finds that he means that. Really, really means it. The lab was always Tony's sanctuary. No one else stayed long because no one else wanted to. And Tony liked the solitude. You're different. You belong in his space.

You take a bite and chew, rolling the food around in your mouth before you swallow. "What are we doing tonight?"

Tony wraps his arms around your waist. "'I thought I'd put those hands of yours to good use."

"Oh, really?" You look up at him and somehow manage to look completely innocent and wickedly seductive at the same time. "What did you have in mind?"

"I have a 1964 Mustang with a partially built engine."

"You're going to let me play with your tools?"

Tony releases you and turns to the car. "Actually, I bought you your own set. I don't share."

"I'm shocked," you say. Tony indicates a rolling stool next to the car and you—after a lengthy pause—sit carefully on it and look up at him. "I'm more of a software than a hardware person."

"Lucky for you"—Tony sits on his own stool and rolls to join you—"you have a genius to help you." He hands you a socket wrench.

"Really? When does she get here?" You smile and Tony sees the same mischievous sparkle that had appeared so often in the hologram.

Tony points to part of the engine. "You're going to start with this piece." You set to work.

It's nice—companionable. Tony settles into a familiar comfort zone. This is good, the lab is good, you are good, it's all very, very good. The silence between you—punctuated by the clink of metal against metal—is comfortable, not awkward. It feels almost like it did when he was working on the mesh for the software, with your voice always in his ear.

But he couldn't touch you then. Tony finds himself running his hands over you because—fuck it—he can. He puts his hands over yours to show you how to use the tools, wraps his arms around you, rests his chin on your shoulder to watch what you're doing. He wasn't always a cuddly person. His parents weren't exactly affectionate. The casual touches of strangers always made him squirm. Sex was different. It wasn't intimate—despite the nudity—but more about his ego or just having fun. He never felt vulnerable then. Except with Pepper. Except with you.

Okay, so he hasn't had sex with you, but he can imagine. He traces the pattern of the tattoos on your thighs, peppers kisses over your bare shoulders. You hair has started to grow in, a soft dusting covering your head that tickles his face when he nuzzles your ear.

As you focus, your movements become more fluid, until it seems like you're concentrating on them less and less and spending more time talking to Tony. You want to know about everything, his thoughts on his designs, his plans for how to improve things in the future, ideas he scrapped, everything in between. Tony likes talking about ideas, they're easier than feelings. And it keeps him away from the dangerous territory of his personal life. Family, friends (or lack of), Pepper… none of those are good first date topics.

 _Date_. It's strange, Tony's not sure he's ever _actually_ been on one of those before. With Pepper, things just… happened. They just added a new dimension to everything that already existed. It was like they'd been going on dates for years. With you, Tony knows everything and nothing about you. The innermost workings of your mind are scanned and copied and triple-backed up. The way you talk and move and interact with him are familiar now. How you feel, what you want to do—those are new. He's looking forward to the discovery.

Now that he knows that maybe you want to know him too—beyond the fame and hype and armor—something that had been writhing inside him ever since you woke up settles just a little.

#

Lunchtime at the Avengers' compound. It's still weird. You aren't sure where you stand with most of these people. Blaire seems friendly enough (though it's harder to communicate with her now that you aren't plugged into FRIDAY's ASL database), but you're pretty sure Rhodey has a secret plan to take you out if necessary. It would be easier if you could read facial expressions well. But even after a few months, that's still slow going. You have walking down pretty well and the breathing subroutine is almost entirely unconscious. You spend most of your time in Tony's lab, typing, working on your fine motor control. And talking. And touching. It's going well. 

You fill your plate with take-out leftovers: pork fried rice, curry, a few enchiladas, and a piece of carrot cake. You eat almost constantly now. The more flavors the better, even if they clash. They're delightful.

Tony and Steve bicker over the television settings. Something about choosing between a baseball game (Steve) and an F1 race (Tony). You never were interested in sports, but listening to their voices is pleasant. You carefully divide your attention: listen to the conversation, balance the plate, move the fork between the food and your mouth, breathe, remain standing… your concentration drifts. If they're going to keep arguing, maybe no one would care if you switched it to Family Feud.

You're on your feet, until you aren't. It's a sharp imbalance, like the ground is yanked out from under you in a game of tug of war. Your mind streams through the data channels, as freeform as you ever were before. You scrabble for purchase, sliding through the electric stream. You whirl through the chaos, tumbling topsy turvy, end over end. You struggle against it, trying to orient yourself like you'd been caught in a riptide at the beach. Once familiar data paths stream past and you reach for any anchor. You lose track of your form as it dissolves into binary, leaving the mesh and your body far behind.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back for chapter 6! I love you all for reading and commenting and kudos-ing! 
> 
> <3  
> Daphne

A crash interrupts Tony's conversation with Steve. They turn to the kitchen. You lie in a crumpled heap on the floor, a shattered plate of food scattered on the floor next to you. Tony's breath catches in his throat.

"FRIDAY! Call Cho!" He rushes to your side, sliding onto his knees when he gets close. Tony reaches for you, but thinks better of it. Isn't that what they say? Don’t move someone who's hurt? Spinal injury or something like that.  Your eyebrow is bleeding where it seems you hit the side of the counter. You're breathing—okay, good, breathing is good.

He brushes his fingers over your cheek and talks to you, nonsense pouring out of his mouth. His hands tingle with the rush of panic. What the hell happened? You'd been fine. You just… Tony's heart sinks into his stomach. Part of him had been afraid, early on, that you could become untethered. But it had been months, he didn't think that was a possibility anymore.

You sit up with a rattling gasp, eyes snapping open. It's an immediate fight or flight response, your body going into overdrive as if Tony had shot adrenaline through your heart. Tony holds on to your arms, more to keep you from hurting yourself than anything.

Your gaze finds him and you grip the sides of his shirt in your hands. "Tony—"

"Don’t move. Are you okay?"

"I—" Your look past him, over his shoulder, to the living room. "I jumped out."

"What?"

"I thought about changing the channel and then I was _there_. It was just like before, I couldn't find my body." Your voice edges higher into hysterics. "I jumped out I was trapped and I—"

"You're not trapped." Tony cuts through your panic. "You got back. You're here." He runs his hand over your hair—a bright turquoise that you'd dyed it the previous week.

You look at him, eyes wide. "What if it happens again? What if I can't come back?"

Tony pulls you into his arms and rests his chin on your head. "I won't let that happen."

#

You lay on the bed. It's soothing, not having to concentrate on your balance, letting gravity take control. When you lay down, completely flat, you can actually think. The breathing subroutine takes over and it's the closest to rest that you ever get.

You need that after today. Tony says you're fine. He checked and rechecked and triple-checked everything. Your body isn't rejecting the mesh. If anything, your mind is using it as a springboard into the surrounding systems. Tony says you'll be able to control it.

Your mind drifts—drawn outside the confines of your brain, past the protective mesh shield that keeps you anchored to your body. It reaches toward the electronics that are a constant hum around you. But you don't let it. You keep it pacing the perimeter, keep it occupied. The machines in the compound whisper to you, sirens calling to you in a way that no one else can hear. And now you know how dangerous they are. A thought, just a thought, and you were flung out of you own body and into the ether. You left your body behind undefended. That can't happen again.

You replay the events of the day, trying to distract the wandering tendrils of thought. Like how you'd spent the day in the lab with Tony. You like thinking about Tony. Watching him work. He's so sure when he's working, like he isn't afraid of anything. His hands always know what they're doing, like he doesn't even need to think about it. What he imagines in his mind just becomes a reality in front of him.

His hands… Tony's hands stray a lot. At least, when he's touching you. Working on the mustang engine—even if that's something he could have done faster on his own—that had been wonderful. Tony's hands over yours. They're rough, which must be strange for a guy who could give Bill Gates a loan. But it means he works. He _likes_ to work. His brain is busy. And after a while, his hands hadn't been over yours anymore. They'd been at your side, over your hips, toying with the hem of your shorts.

You stop.

Something… something's strange. You feel… different. The side of your sensory cortex tickles. The physical sensation is _so_ familiar. Hungry—no not that. Not quite, but similar. You don't have to pee, do you? Nah, you did that half an hour ago. You let the sensation flood through you, dissecting each individual neuron firing. What is your body trying to tell you? Clearly, you need to _do_ something. But what?

.

.

.

Holy shit. _Holy shit._

You're _horny_. It's been so fucking long that you actually fucking forgot what it fucking feels like.

Alright. Sexual arousal. That's fine. That's good. Something you've dealt with before. It's a normal bodily function and you're supposed to be on the lookout for those. Good. Found a new one.

And it's for Tony! Good, that's good, though not exactly surprising. Objectively, Tony is gorgeous. You've seen him from just about every angle imaginable and his arms in a t-shirt look just as good as his ass in his jeans. And if the leaked videos that still float around the internet are any indication, everything underneath looks just as—focus. The thought of finding a part of Tony's body that you haven't already seen brings The Aroused sensation back in full force. You did kiss him. The dinner/mechanical engineering thing was a "date". Sexual intimacy would naturally be something that would follow that up.

Your heart skips a beat.

Can—can you have sex now?

Not, like ethically, morally, or whatever, but _physically_. Oh god, how many bodily processes are involved in that? Not just the arousal (apparently that works fine) but the blood flow changes, hormonal things… holy shit. Can you get wet? And if the mental reaction from kissing Tony is any judge, will you be able to focus on _anything_ once other parts of your body get involved? What if you forget to breathe? What if you can't climax?

Okay, new physical sensation. Not horny anymore. Definitely scared. Yep, this is scared. Heart beating, short of breath, sweating, that's all panic right now.

You take over manual control of your breathing, willing yourself to take deep lungsful of air. Okay. It's okay. Nothing is happening right now. You don't _know_ that you'll have problems. It could all go very well. No reason to panic.

Maybe Tony would be… understanding about it. He could take things slow, let you adjust, figure out what you're doing, maybe make some subroutines… Okay, that's a good thought. Tony taking his time with you. It's not like you have to turn into rabbits right away.

The Arousal is back again, taking over from fear as the reason for your pounding heart. What if you just… take things for a test drive? No pressure, no Tony involved— just see what's working. See what your body still remembers.

You take a few minutes to struggle out of your clothes. Clothing requires lots of concentration, so many small movements and awkward angles, but eventually you lay on the bed. Naked. With your hand between your legs.

Now what?

This is ridiculous. You should not be feeling awkward about this. You have done this before. You and your fingers were very friendly whenever you were between casuals. Just… you've never been unsure of what the outcome would be.

Deep breath.

Okay, maybe another one.

Tony. You'd been thinking about Tony and that's what got this whole mess started. Thinking about your date in the workshop. And Tony. And his wandering hands.

He'd sat behind you and you felt the searing heat from his chest all along your back. His arms wrapped around your waist, warm hands resting on your bare thighs. You show a lot of skin. You like your skin. Fantasy-Tony likes your skin too.

He runs his palms over your shorts and up your sides, pushing the shirt you're wearing out of the way so he can caress the line of your waist. He kisses along your neck, goatee tickling the skin there and you tilt your head to give him better access. He reaches your ear and scrapes his teeth over the piercings there, pulling _just_ hard enough. His hands move back to your hips, thumbs stroking slow circles on the bone. One hand slips over your jeans to rest in juncture of your legs, pressing at you through the rough material of your shorts… And then your shorts _aren't_ in the way because this is your fantasy and physics can work however you want it too. And it's his fingers that are moving between your thighs, not yours, and—holy shit.

Your climax takes you by surprise. Every coherent thought you had fragments into shards of crystal. Your brain floods with hormones all screaming 'yes, good, yes, more, yes!' and you lose track of what your body is doing, but it _must_ be good because— _holy shit_ —you feel amazing.

When you recollect yourself, your breathing subroutine has you panting and your heart pounds against your chest. Your body feels lazy and warm and relaxed and—why is it dark?

Why is it _quiet_?

You sit up and bring your sensory cortex fully back online—disregard the ache between your legs, that's less important now. The room is quiet. Not, like, middle of the night quiet. There's no air conditioner, no buzz of electricity.

"FRIDAY?"

No response.

You cross to the touch panel near your door. When you tap at the screen, it displays static.

Oh, _crap_ …

#

The compound's power system goes down with a bang. The air fills with the sound of a thousand processes stuttering to a stop. Everything goes dark.

Tony stares around him, his eyes adjusting to the sudden darkness. An attack? No, there are multiple redundancies designed to keep exactly this from happening. The only thing that has ever managed to create a wholesale power outage was… Shit. Where are you?

"FRIDAY?" He waits for a response that doesn't come.

He gropes his way through the lab to the door, struggling to find, then use the manual override that opens it. And then it's stairs and corridors and _even more stairs_ , because the compound isn't designed for full-scale power outages.

He pounds on the door and calls your name. Muffled swearing comes from the other side, a few bangs, then more swearing. "C'mon, open the door."

"Hold on a sec." More bangs, more swearing, then the door opens with the series of clicks from the manual override. "Hey," you say through the crack, holding the door closed over the rest of your form. "What's up?" You're breathing hard and your choppy turquoise hair is in disarray.

Tony raises an eyebrow. "Power's out. Know anything about it?"

You take a long time to respond. You have a hard time processing things as it is, but the delay is too long this time. Too long for you to be telling the truth. "I was experimenting."

"With what?"           

Okay, it is dark, but your pupils definitely dilated when he asked that.

"Don't worry about it. Need help putting the system back up?"

"Sure." He holds out his hand. "Come back to the lab with me?" He's being mean and he knows it, but you are hiding something and he can't resist teasing you.

Another pause. "I'll meet you down there in a few minutes."

"That's okay. I can just wait in your room."

"You don't have to."

"It's fine."

"No, really—"

"Cheshire, are you wearing clothes?" The way your face freezes when he asks tells him everything he needs to know.

"None of your business."

He takes a step toward the door, a wolfish smile coming to his face. "What kind of experiment was it again?"

Even in the darkness, he can see your face flush red. That can't possibly be an intentional reaction. "I'll fix the power myself," you say, closing the door in his face.

#

Tony has invented amazing things under stress—the first Iron Man suit being the most obvious—but they pale in comparison to what he can do when he really hits his stride. Everything fires at once and he falls into a daze, as if his fingers move of their own accord and don't actually listen to him. He startles out of that state with something new in his hands. He understands how it works, knows every detail of the design, but it appears to him as if by magic.  Tony works better when he's happy and lately, he is all kinds of happy, which means his productivity has skyrocketed. Even with all the time he spends with you, he's churning out new tech at a lightning rate.

"What are you working on?" You step over the threshold of the lab, barefoot and wearing one of Tony's dress shirts (where did you get that?). Your movements are fluid now, a grace that Tony saw with your hologram that is now physical. With your short, bright hair, colorful tattoos, and shiny piercings, you seem almost like something from a dream, a woodland sprite come to play a trick on him.

"You're up?" Tony asks, setting aside his project. He looks at the clock to double check that he hasn't worked straight through the night again. Nope. Two twenty-seven.

"So are you." You trail your fingers over the edge of the workbench, eyes never wavering from his face. There's a sway in your hips, the slightest smirk on your face that lets him know where your mind is.

"Yeah, but I'm always up," Tony says. He sits back further in his chair and watches you saunter across the room, sexier than a goddamn strip tease.

"Well, so am I."

"You should be in bed."

"Is that an offer?"

Well, _damn_ , those words just went straight to his pants. He licks his lips and your eyes follow the motion. You're close enough to touch now, your meandering path finally bringing you within his reach. He takes your fingertips in his and tugs you toward him. You go willingly and he ends up with you straddled over his hips. You run your fingers through his hair, scraping your nails along his scalp and adding a shadow of pain that makes Tony's spine tingle. The kiss is deep and slow as you make a thorough exploration of his mouth. Tony runs his hands up your thighs and over your hips (lace underwear, hell yeah). The sides of your shirt—his shirt—part where you've left all but one button undone. With a final tug on his lower lip you leave his mouth in favor of trailing kisses along his jawline. Tony settles, letting his eyes slip closed. His hands stroke smooth lines over your torso.

He likes this, likes how easy things are with you. He likes that your kisses always have an edge of bite in them and that your hands never really leave his body. There's no emotional friction, no awkward dance as he tries to be what you want. There's just the press of your body against his. You return to his lips, hands sliding down his chest to the waistband of his jeans.

That's… not a line he's crossed with you yet. He tells himself he's taking it slow, letting you get comfortable in your own body again, but he's nervous as hell. Sex is harder when feelings get involved; there's an intimacy that he can't escape. It's not like he can wear the armor all the time (even if he wants to). So, maybe now isn't a good time. Besides, it's late—or early—and he knows you haven't been sleeping as much as you should. Right. That's just… he's being cautious.

"You really should get some rest," he says against your lips.

You sit back with a sigh and roll your eyes. "Tony, my body has been asleep for years. I'm tired of resting."

Tony's eyes go to the couch, the one he put in the workshop specifically for mid-work naps.

"Come on." He slaps your thigh playfully and you clamber off him. He takes your hand and pulls you behind him to the couch. Midway there, you stop.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing." Tony sits and pats the cushion next to him. "Come here."

"No." You cross your arms. A little bubble of pride wells up in Tony's chest. You'd struggled with that movement for a while before you mastered it.

"Don't be stubborn."

"Why do you want me on the couch?"

"I just want to get more comfortable."

"What's the catch?"

"There's no catch."

"Yeah, right."

It takes some struggling, and more swearing than is probably appropriate, but Tony finally ends up on the workshop couch, you draped across him, legs tangled around his. You huff and rub your cheek against his chest. Tony tightens his arms around you.

"You're not going to convince me to go to sleep like this," you say, but he can already feel you drifting.

"Not trying to convince you of anything," he says. "Just exploring options."

Tony works with the holograms, structuring and restructuring the schematics for his latest project. You trace your hand over his side, swirling the fabric of his shirt between your fingers. It's a lazy motion, affectionate in its slow, steady progress across his body.

Tony isn't a cuddly person. His family was never overly affectionate and, even as an adult, he always kept a certain distance between him and others. A friendly clap on the shoulder, maybe a hug here or there, but nothing too close for too long.

You, however, you _love_ to touch. Maybe you didn't before, Tony honestly has no idea, but now, you always have your hands on him somehow. Whenever you're around him, you find a way to maintain contact, whether it's holding hands or twirling your fingers through his hair. You run your hands over his shirts, through his hair, you rest your cheek against his, rubbing your skin against the stubble. He chalks it up to you exploring once familiar sensations, but it really doesn't matter.

"What are you working on?" you ask.

Tony turns the diagram a different direction. "Portable EMP. You know, to—"

"Knock out electronics, yeah. I'm familiar the concept." You scoff. "And you have one in the middle of your lab around all your specialized equipment?"

"I don't plan on activating it." The EMP device's range is small, but it would still wreak havoc. Tony would need months to rebuild the Avengers' system if he set it off. Not to mention the suits.

"Then what's the point?"

"Just in case."

"In case what?"

Tony takes a deep breath, letting it fill his chest, then slowly lets it out. "Ultron burned his way through the internet. If I'd been able to shut down everything, he wouldn't have gotten out."

"You destroyed Ultron." You don’t phrase it as a question, but there's a hint of uncertainty, just a little trepidation that tugs at Tony's heart.

"Yeah," he says. "We did."

"So, just in case you didn't really?"

"Just in case."

"Do you have a lot of these 'just in case' plans?"

"You mean for Loki, or the Hulk, or Hydra?" Tony thinks of the warehouse full of contingencies and back-ups. He may never have been a boy scout, but he does believe in being prepared. "Yeah."

He feels you nod against his chest. "Did you build a 'just in case' for me?"

"Do I need one?"

"Depends on how happy you keep me." You settle deeper into the couch with him and resume mapping his body with your hands. Your hand slips between the buttons on the front of his shirt. You carefully undo each one, taking second by painstaking second to release each, smoothing your palm over the revealed skin underneath.

He tries not to respond as you creep further upward. An uncomfortable itch nags at him, buzzing at the back of his mind like a mosquito. When you reach the last button—three from the top, resting right over his sternum—he stops you, hand covering yours, abandoning the hologram he had been manipulating. He turns his attention to you, noticing for the first time that his breathing has become fast. You look up at him and raise your eyebrow, stretching the three dainty stars tattooed above it.

"It's—uh—it's not all so great looking."

"Tony, I promise you, you've got nothing new on this earth that would shock me."

Tony swallows. That is… not true at all. He never made the real nature of the arc reactor public knowledge. As far as the world was concerned, the arc reactor had been part of the suit and nothing else. Especially after Obediah, Tony had kept knowledge of the arc reactor out of any official documentation, going to far as to purge SHIELD's record. A weakness like that wasn't something he wanted known to his enemies, wherever they were. And the removal was no less secret.

He struggles to figure out what to say and you watch him, curious, but not probing. His tongue feels heavy in his throat. He could lie. That would be the easiest way. He could claim the scars were from shrapnel, an accident, anything. You don't need to know how weak he is. "What do you know about the arc reactor?" he asks.

The sudden change in topic seems to throw you off balance. You prop yourself up on your elbows, still laying on top of him. "It powers the suit." You tilt you head to the side, a quiet request for him to continue.

Technically, that's correct, just incomplete. Tony can still back out. He doesn't have to tell you. It's not like you would—like you could… "It wasn't part of the suit."

Confusion clouds your face, then your eyes widen and you sit up, straddling his hips, and open the last button of his shirt. You smooth your hands over his chest, fingers lingering over the scars in the center. "What did it do?" you ask, voice barely above a whisper. Your touch is light, almost reverent.  

"Kept me alive." The words come out even though he doesn't summon them. About Afghanistan, Yensen, the torture, everything. He hasn't talked with anyone about it since Pepper. Not even Rhodey knows all the details. But for some reason, with you, it just comes out. Maybe it's because he knows that you won't give him with that _look_. The one filled with pity that he could always expect when he revealed any part of him that was less than invincible. You just… listen. And when he's done, you stay silent for a minute, your fingers tracing each of the scars on his chest.

"You're amazing." The words come out breathy and small.

He stops your hands with his, chest burning. Tony has never been good at accepting compliments. "It's not—it's just—"

"Just nothing." You stop him. "It's incredible." You lean down, hands splayed over his ribs and press your lips to the center of his chest, where the arc reactor once rested.

Time gets a little syrupy after that. Tony spends the better part of the next few hours lost in your touch. It's slow and soft and full of breathy sighs and—hell—it's probably the most heartfelt sex he's ever had. After, when you're laying across him, breathing softly over his chest, Tony feels part of his soul—a piece that's been missing ever since Pepper left—click back into place.

#

Tony wakes when the lights flicker. Still half asleep, he pushes himself into a sitting position. You lie on top of him, sleeping, but your body is too still.

Around him, machinery whirs and clicks, the tech in the lab running itself. DUM-E turns in a slow circle, knocking tools across the floor. The sound system comes to life with a burst of static.

"Cheshire," he says, hand skimming over the skin of your shoulder. "Sweetheart, hey, come back." He pulls you closer and tucks your head under his chin. His hand rubs soothing circles over your back. You don't respond, body limp in his arms.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually the chaos of the room subsides. You take a shuddering breath, your eyes squeezing more tightly shut. Tony releases a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. You groan and nestle your face against his neck, mumbling kisses against the skin.


	7. Chapter 7

Your plans for an energetic morning encore and afterglow cuddling are ruined when Tony tells you about what your brain was up to while you slept. He calls it 'sleepwalking', but that doesn't make you feel any better about it. Your mind was wandering without your permission, doing god knows what, and you sure as hell didn't have any control over it. What if it gets itself trapped out in the internet again during one of its midnight strolls? If you were hesitant about your powers before, it's nothing compared to now.

"Try moving DUM-E," Tony says later that day when you’ve showered away most of your panic and put yourself back in order. It's his latest attempt to coax you into practicing with your powers. The idea is for you to gain control, to be more comfortable with hopping in and out of your body.

"I don't want to." You lean with one hip against the workbench, a scowl on your face.

He joins you, placing his hands over your hips and pressing his forehead against yours. "Just try moving it."

"Tony—"

You try to step away, but he holds you fast and caresses your cheek with his fingers. "It'll be fine. I'm right here. Go ahead."

You huff, but focus over his shoulder at the bot, reaching out with your mind to feel the tingle of its circuitry. It hums in response to your touch, like a dog wagging its tail. You keep one foot firmly planted in your own mind, even as you twirl your consciousness through DUM-E, testing the connections, whirring the—

You startle back into your own body with a gasp, releasing the bot in a rush. Tony's hands have slid up the back of your shirt, his teeth scraping lazily over your collarbone. Your sensory cortex lights up like fireworks, gleefully overloaded with the sensation of Tony's skin rubbing over yours. It takes a few seconds for you to find the path to your voice. "Tony!"

"Hm?"

"What are you doing?" You tangle your hands in his hair, trying to pry him away from you.

He holds you steady against him, a solid hand resting between your shoulder blades. "Exploring options."

"I thought you wanted me to practice multi-tasking."

"Sure." His tongue traces over the swirl of the dragon tattoo that covers your left shoulder. "That means there has to be something for you to focus on both sides, right?"

You gasp as his other hand sinks past the waistband of your shorts to cup your ass.

"Tony?" A woman's voice rings through the lab. Tony releases you with a sound like a kicked puppy. In his sudden absence, you stumble and land on your backside.  "Tony!" The voice is closer this time. Tony's eyes are wide with shock. You stand, hands on the ground to steady yourself, and straighten in time to see Pepper Potts come into the lab.

You recognize her—of course you recognize her. She's in practically every picture with Tony for the past ten years. She took over his company. Forbes has written articles written about her leadership of Stark Industries. She's Pepper Freaking Potts—Tony's ex-girlfriend.

"Hey." Her smile is warm and a little shy as her gaze falls on Tony.

"Hey." His reply is breathless.

The breathing subroutine falters and an unfamiliar wrenching sensation clenches near your heart. Your pretty sure half your brain shuts off.

Pepper notices you and an unreadable expression passes over her features before it's replaced by a smooth veneer of politeness. She holds out her hand. "Hi, I didn't know Tony was hiring interns."

Okay.

Physically, you weren't stabbed (seems unlikely), but it sure as hell feels like it. A myriad of pain sensors fire at once: your chest, your stomach, a few right behind your eyes. You shake her hand because that is literally the only reaction that you can process—hold out your hand, let her move it in her warm, firm grip.

Tony seems to regain his bearings. "Pepper, this is—uh—"

"That's okay," you cut him off. "I'll just go and, uh, let you take care of… whatever."

You leave. You leave so fucking fast. Like Ultron himself was on your heels. You walk out of the lab and keep going, not paying attention to where, just focusing on the rhythmic subroutine of one foot in front of the other. Muscles tense, relax. Body moves forward with the momentum, then sinks toward the ground with gravity, resists the change in motion, but also resists stopping. You focus on that. Physical sensations are good. They makes sense. They can be parsed and analyzed.

Unlike emotional reactions.

You don't know where your feet carry you until you arrive in the server room. The warm familiarity of electronics surrounds you, welcomes you into their embrace. They murmur to you, a soothing call of peace. There's no pain if you join them. You wouldn't have to feel the sting of Tony's rejection (however subtle). You could look at this situation rationally, instead of with the heart wrenching knowledge that you are so far from Tony that you can't even be considered a real romantic rival.

You sink against the far wall and drift into the codebase. You let the data stream carry you along, your consciousness spreading out into the familiar web of information. In a final moment of relief, you let go of the tight grip you've held on your body and slip away from it. It's freeing—so easy, so effortless. No background information to process, no need to appear normal.

You don't want to stay in the Avengers' system. Not now. Not when you can so easily peek in on whatever it is that Tony is doing with Pepper. It's none of your business anyway. So he slept with you; no big deal. It _is_ Tony Stark after all. And he was with Pepper for how long? The numbers aren't on your side for any sort of happily ever after.

You slide through the channels, following unfamiliar twists and turns until you don't recognize where you are. For a little while, you sink into it, forgetting yourself and giving over to the flow of data around you.

Routing number 422651651… can you get me that presentation by Monday… calculating… production of renewable resources projected to climb through… tell mom that I'm not going to be at Thanksgiving this year… calculating… stocks go up for the first time in… calculating… BREAKING NEWS… weather forecast for Friday is sunny and… MBG 12.5% HGW -14.25%... calculating… unable to contact asset, current location with Avengers—

Your consciousness surges back to the surface. You throw out tendrils of thought, grasping for the tail end of that thread. You catch it, but just barely. It's smart, it covers its trail, but you're better. You follow it, losing it a few times before catching it again, and trace it back to its source.

You don't know this place. The encryption is unfamiliar, the layout of the system… strange. It's not a normal construction, not even for something highly specialized. It seems almost like it was made for someone just like you. You tread lightly, wary of traps and pitfalls. This… this is… who built this? The encryption is tricky, taking you longer than usual to break through. What you find on the other side is…

You scramble out, racing back the path you came. You need to get back. You need to get back _now_.

#

Pepper is there. Right there. Sitting in front of Tony like this is any other day. But this is not normal, not anymore. She can't just sit there like she did before, but she _is_. He wastes a few minutes making her coffee. She asks how he is (fine), how things are going (good), and all the other pleasantries. But there is a reason that Pepper is here and Tony _knows_ that. Because otherwise she wouldn't be. They… they ended things. It had been clear as glass. They didn't need to rehash any of that.

"I haven't heard from you," she says.

"I sent you the proposals for R&D just last week."

"That's not what I mean, Tony. You've kept up with all the Stark Industries work just fine… which is weird enough on its own."

"Well, I've been doing it. I don't know what you want from me."

"I'm worried about you."

"Well, don't be."

"Steve says—"

"You're talking to Steve about me?"

"I said I was worried."

"No, that totally makes sense, calling the babysitter on me."

"Tony, what is going on with you? You're responding to e-mails on time, you're sending in production schedules, you actually called into a board meeting."

"So, I'm being responsible for once in my life and you think that's, what, out of character?"

"That's not what I said."

"You know what, it's—"

"Tony, you never even told me _why_ —"

You burst into the room, stumbling over the threshold. Tony stands. You're talking too fast, the words tripping over each other. You rush to him and he catches your wrists to hold you upright.

When you've stilled, you take a moment to catch your breath. "We have a problem. Like, a really, really big problem."

Tony meets Pepper's gaze over your shoulder. "I have to deal with this. We'll, uh, we'll talk later."

Her mouth tightens and her forehead crinkles, but she nods. 

#

"What kind of information?" Steve asks.

"All of it," you say. Now that you're back in the limited space of your brain, it's harder to parse everything that you'd seen during your excursion into the foreign system. "Schematics for the suits, scientific analysis of the Hulk…" You look around the room at the concerned faces assembled. "There was a lot of genetic information."

"Genetic?"

"Cap, Wanda, Bruce… Blaire."

Steve looks to Tony. "That has to be AIM. Forson's the only one who would have Blaire's stats."

"Yeah, but where did they get the rest of it?" Tony asks.

"Does it matter?" Steve turns back to you. "Can you delete it remotely?"

"Sure, but there's no point if they have a physical backup that's not connected."

"Do they?"

You shrug. "That's kind of the point; I can't know without looking for a physical drive."

"Can you find where the data was stored?"

"I already traced it."

"What are you going to do with that?" Tony asks. "It's not the sort of thing that you can get with a smash and grab. Forson will be gone the second he knows we're on to him, if he isn't already."

"Then sneak in." Natasha shrugs.

"What kind of security are we looking at?" Steve asks. His eyes—his crazy, intense blue eyes—stare through you.

"Good. Really, really good. It's not the kind of thing that can be disabled all at once, there needs to be real time control. Down to the second."

"If Nat goes in, could you do disable the security?" he asks.

"Remotely? The timing is precise. The lag could be too much."

"So, we need to find another way around it."

"There isn't going to be another way around it. I could do it. The real time security breach. If I was there, there wouldn't be a lag. I could walk right in."

"Whoa, hey, no." Tony holds his hand out like he could restrain you. "You said that place was set up like it was made just to catch you."

"Not _made_ to—"

"But it could."

"Like whoever made it saw things the way I do, yeah."

"So, you could get caught."

"I know what I'm doing."

"If you could get caught, then it's a no."

" _Excuse me?_ "

He turns back to Steve. "I'll have FRIDAY run—"

You cut him off, letting venom drip into your tone. "You did not seriously just tell me what to do."

He turns back to you, irritation flooding his voice. "It's dangerous and I don't want you to be involved."

"You don't give me orders."

"Thanks for the information," Tony says, "But we've got it from here." You can almost hear the _'the adults are talking now'_ that he leaves unsaid.

#

If Tony thinks that you're going to sit on your ass when you could be helping, he is sorely mistaken. They spend the rest of the day debating the options and don't come up with any better ideas. They're waiting on FRIDAY to find a weakness in the system, which is waste of time and an exercise for Tony's ego, nothing else. FRIDAY will get caught and this Forson guy will disappear along with all his crazy detailed data.

But it's not like you're an idiot. Going in without backup would be stupid. So… you call Natasha once you get there.

<I already regret whatever this is about,> she says by way of greeting.

Okay, well it's a better reaction than you expected. "Don't be mad. I'm already here."

<I'm getting Tony.>

"Oh come on. He'll just get his little iron panties in a twist. By the time he gets here, I'll be in and out anyway."

There's the sound of a deep breath from the other end of the line and you can practically see her rubbing the bridge of her nose. <I'll get Steve.>

"Cool," you say. "So, I'll just slip in and call you if I need help."

<Don't—> You hang up before she can throw a wrench in your plan.

Night security on the building is kind of a joke, at least from a manpower standpoint. A couple of guards on the outside, more patrolling the halls. The phones they're using as walkies stand out like flashlights in the dark. You stay anchored, but let your mind drift—just a little, just enough that you can feel the security system of the building purring under your fingers. _Hello, honey. Care to let me in?_

It's the first time you've really given this a go. You'd practiced a tiny bit with your phone and some of the Avengers' system before you set out. Going in but not too far. As long as you stay focused and stay in your body, this should be simple. In and out. No one will be looking for you. No one even knows someone like you exists. The biggest problem is sliding past the guards. Which turns out to not be a problem at all when you set off a tiny false alarm on an opposite door. People are so easily distracted.

The security system logs every time someone passes a checkpoint using their badge. They don't count the times people open the door as if the system isn't there. You divide your attention: 40% to the security locks on your route, 30% to watching the camera relays to make sure you don't run into any unexpected visitors, the rest to keeping your physical form in check.

You step up to the elevators. You should have an RFID card to access the top floors. And that's where you want to go. The elevator gives a beep of protest when you press the button for the floor with the heaviest system activity, bumping up against a wall of security clearance. You close your eyes, reaching into the system to bypass the security wall. The elevator beeps again. Access Granted. Easy peasy.

Your stomach drops as the elevator rockets upwards. Your ears pop—boy had you forgotten what _that_ was like—as you pass floors eighteen and nineteen. The elevators slows, then coasts to the stop at thirty-five. The doors open with a ding.

Your phone buzzes. Steve's number. You reach into the circuitry, pulling the call into your own mind.

<Hello?>

<Are you insane?>

<Hi, Steve.>

<Get back here.>

<I'm already inside.>

This floor is dark, quiet, but buzzing with the menacing presence of an electronic security system. You can't risk turning it off wholesale—someone would notice—so you mesh more fully with the system, passing through checkpoints and resetting them as if you had never been. It's a tangled web of protocols, but nothing you can't handle.

You wade toward the part of the floor where the security gets heavier (Steve still mutters on the side of your sensory cortex.) You need to wipe out the servers, but you can take care of that after you find if they have a backup drive.  

_If I were a highly guarded computer data bank, where would I be?_

The answer is almost too apparent. Not a heavy collection of nodes, but their complete absence. This is the twenty-first century, there is NOWHERE that technology doesn't lurk. Wires run under the middle of forests. Fiber optic cables crisscross the oceans. There should not be a single room in this building that isn't wired for internet or security.

But there is.

<Steve, I think I've got something.>

It sits there, like a black hole. You almost walk right past it until you sense the utter _wrongness_ of it. It shouldn't be there. You turn toward it. The security streams form a box around it, but they cut off suddenly, rerouting around something. There is still a door.

A faraday cage. A fucking faraday cage. It's unreasonably difficult to implement and install for the purposes that they want, but it's there anyway, as if it were perfectly designed to keep exactly you out. No electronic signals can pass through, so you have no idea what you're about to walk into, but if you were going to hide a very important piece of technology from one of the smartest tech geniuses on the planet (and here, you're thinking Tony if only because he's more famous), this is exactly how you would do it.

The security lock for the door is still on the outside. You bypass it with ease. The door opens noiselessly revealing the contents.

That's… disappointing.

There _is_ a drive. Just one. A relatively little one, if you're honest. I mean, those things can store tons of data now, so it could hold just about anything. But really, a whole faraday cage for this?

<I'm going to have to go offline for a second here. There's a—> Right, Steve is _not_ going to understand the concept of a faraday cage right now.  <I just need to go dark for a second. The security in this room is weird.>

<If you don't make contact in five minutes, I'm coming in after you.>

<You better.>

There's a wrenching sensation as you pass through, but you remain firmly entrenched in your own brain. The white lights inside the room are blinding. You pull it from the static free, dust proof padding and give it a cursory probe. Encrypted. Well, of course it's encrypted. You poke at it a little harder. Okay, so it's a really complicated type of encrypted. How are you supposed to know if this is what you're looking for? You pull at the edges of it for a few more minutes, keeping the shell of security more or less intact. Damn. Seems like you'll need more time with it.

Four minutes, thirty seconds. Time to go.

#

You're avoiding him. No, Tony isn't surprised. You hadn't been happy with him after he put his foot down, but what the hell else was he supposed to do? You were going to go off and get yourself hurt or worse. There's no use in asking FRIDAY where you are. If you don't want to be found, she won't be able to tell him. But he wants to talk to you, maybe apologize. Not for stopping you—he doesn't regret that—but maybe for the way that he did it. Maybe he could explain. Voices buzz from the conference room, Steve and Nat and someone else. Tony veers that direction. Maybe they would know where you'd gone.

Your voice fills the room as Tony enters. He stops, the blood freezing in his veins. Your voice comes through the _speakers_.

 "Are you fucking kidding me, right now?" he says.

Steve looks up from the monitor in alarm. "Tony—"

"Don't. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

<Kind of busy, Tony.>

"She's doing fine," Nat says. "She already has the drive. She'll be out before anyone notices."

That's not the point. You weren't supposed to go in the first place. "I told you not to," he says to Steve. He turns his attention to the microphone. "I told _you_ not to."

<Hey, guys—>

Tony is too busy getting into it with Steve to respond. He shouldn't have let you go. He should have found a way to stop you. And if you'd already gone off on your own, he should have dragged your ass back here. The room descends into a chorus of raised voices.

< _Guys!_ > Your voice cuts through the noise, silencing them. <Something tripped the alarm.>

Tony curses and Steve lurches back to the monitor. "What? How?"

<I don't know. Something moved and it wasn't me. Maybe there was a manual redundancy. There are a lot more guards than I counted the first time.>

Steve leans toward the microphone. "You need to get out of there."

<On it.>

Tony swears and paces the edge of the room. "If she gets hurt, this is on you, Rogers."

Steve ignores him. "How far are you from the elevator?"

<Can't take the elevator. There's a manual override. If they hit it, I'm a sitting duck. I have to go through the stairs.>

Oh god, Tony's chest hurts. Is this what a heart attack feels like? He doesn't have time for one of those. You're a sitting duck at… wherever you are. "Send her coordinates," he says as he heads for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Disney Land. Where do you think?" Tony rolls his eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

Stairs… fucking _stairs_. Years of bedrest have left your behind on your cardio. The way down is blocked, a flurry of red dots that can only mean security guards swarming all of the floors, sealing them as they go. You are left going _up_ the stairs.

You stop for a breather at the next landing. One more floor to the top, but geez are you even going to make it that far? Your legs ache, your chest burns with each labored breath. You're not going to make it another flight before they catch you.

You push your way out of the stairwell and into the hallway of offices. The sound of boots on stairs echoes behind you. Not a lot of time, then. You push at doors until you find one that opens, then rush inside, closing and locking it behind you. It's a bare office, the kind with big glass windows and a desk that it's impossible to hide behind. Voices sound from the hallway. You look around frantically, finally settling on the window.

You rush to it and pull upwards. It sticks. The voices grow louder and doors slam from the hall. Fuck, shit, damn—anywhere would be better than here right now. Your eyes land on the office chair. Hoo-boy… 

It takes a few staggering tries to pick up the chair. The first time you swing it at the window, it makes a loud bang, but doesn’t do much of anything else. You swear. Then you try again. A crack. Again. A bigger crack. Again.

Cold air roars in through the broken glass. You squeeze through, wincing as some of the sharp edges scrape against your skin. It takes a few tries to correctly place your foot on the narrow ledge outside. You scoot to the side as the door to the office opens with a bang. Over the wind that howls through the skyscrapers, you hear men calling to each other. This isn't going to be a good hiding place, not with the gaping window. You shimmy along the ledge, pressing as flat against the side of the building as you can, and round the corner.

You glance upwards. There's only about twenty feet between you and the roof. That has to be safer than balancing on the ledge until help arrives, right? The large stones that make up the façade of the building provide ample hand holds. Okay, this can work.

You kick your shoes off, and wiggle your toes into the closest groove. The stone is freezing against your bare skin. You shut off that part of your sensory cortex. That kind of information really isn't going to help you right now.

You think back to a rock climbing class you took in college. Push with your legs, don't pull with your arms. One step up, then another.

A new inquiry comes in, Tony's private channel to your phone from the suit. <Cheshire, where are you?>

Your grip tightens as you respond, wasting precious concentration on splitting your awareness. "Good question." _Only forty floors up, hanging on by my fingernails._

<You don't know?>

"Kind of busy, right now."

A series of swears materialize in your mind, a staccato sequence of ones and zeroes.

Your muscles are on fire. Holding yourself on the wall is difficult enough, even without the ten feet you still have to climb. You try to block out that set of pain receptors, but they bleed through your defense. There's not a choice, there's nowhere else to go at this point.

Deep breath. Push with your legs. Step up. Arms ache, legs ache, lungs on fire. Deep breath. Push with your legs. Step up. Arms ache, legs ache, lungs on fire. Deep breath. Again.

You crawl over the ledge, scraping skin off your arms and stomach, but finally feeling safe for the first time in two floors and twenty minutes. You lay on the roof, chest heaving and desperately clinging to consciousness. Losing your grip on your body right now would be super-duper bad.

Ironman lands with a clang. You struggle to sit up. He stands from the crouch he landed in, his back to you, then slowly turns around.

"Tony…?"

<Let's go,> he says. That's it. No quips or jokes. He doesn't even admonish you. _Fuck_.

#

The trip back is silent. Tony fumes, not trusting himself to say anything just yet. He needs to process this, but his brain can't get past the danger that you'd put yourself in. You had walked _right into it_ , even after Tony had explicitly told you not to. It was like you were trying to give him a heart attack. Why couldn't you just stay where he put you? Why couldn't you just _stay safe_?

Tony lands harder than he had intended, stumbling a little on the roof. As soon as he's steady, you're out of his arms, paces away. Your face is a mask of fury, like he's the one that did something wrong, like he's the one who went off on his own and tried to get killed. His temper boils over.

"What the hell were you doing?" Tony rips the helmet off.

"Helping!"

"You could have died."

"That's not your problem."

"Of course it's my problem! What would you have done if I hadn't showed up?"

"I had backup."

"You shouldn’t have been there in the first place."

"Why, because you _said so_?"

"Yes because I said so! I'm trying to protect you. "

"Well, cut it out" The wind whistles over the rooftop, blowing your hair and clothes around you. "I'm not your responsibility and I don’t belong to you. You don't get to make decisions for me."

Tony steps closer, looming over you. "The hell I don't."

You expression twists in fury. With a _bzzt_ , the suit power cuts out, trapping Tony motionless as you turn on your heel and stalk off the roof.

#

Tony considers spending the night in the lab. It's what he would usually do, stay among his tools and toys, tinkering until his mind went numb. That's what he did when things got rough with Pepper. But now, the lab is filled with you, everything an extension of your presence, reminding him of your absence from the space. So he goes to his room.

You're waiting for him when he gets there. He always locks the door, but of course that wouldn't have stopped you. You lay on the bed, scowling at the ceiling.

When he enters, you sit up. "I am not apologizing," you say.

So you were still fighting. Great. "You came up here to tell me that?" Tony keeps his voice impassive.

"I'm not sorry that I did it. It needed to be done and I was the best person."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I got what I was fucking looking for, you asshole!" You stalk toward him, all fury and fire. "I found that stupid data drive." You shove the hard metal container against his chest, right over where the arc reactor once settled. "Its encryption was going to take more time than I had. If it's that important, then you should have a look at it." You brush past him toward the door.

Tony grabs your hand, barely gripping the tips of your fingers. "I'm not sorry either," he says without looking at you. "I'm not sorry that I came to save your ass. I'm not sorry that I tried to protect you."

You turn back to him. "I don't need your protection. I'm a big girl, not a damsel in distress."

"It has nothing to do with that." He tosses the drive onto the bed where it bounces on the comforter with a slight _whumph_. "You think I don't worry about Rhodey and Cap and Nat, too? It's _dangerous_. They have years more training than I do and I'm still terrified they might not come back."

"Yeah, but you don't try to stop them from going. You need to trust me."

"I can't lose you again." He tugs you closer so he can rest his forehead against yours. "I did that once. It sucked."

You relax into his touch. It's just a little bit—the tiniest of concessions—but it's reassuring. "I'm not going anywhere."

"I don't want you to get hurt because of me." His hands settle over your shoulders. "At least let me protect you."

"Tony, I’m not going to sit by—"

"That's not what I mean." One hand goes to the back of your neck, massaging in slow circles, the other to the phone in his pocket. "I've been working on something." A few taps bring up his latest schematics and projects them into the space next to you. "Just in case."

You're eyes go to the holographic image. "Oh my god." It's a suit. Your suit. The design is slimmer and lighter, playing toward speed more than firepower. It can still take a hit though. And the controls will work seamlessly with your powers. "You made me an Ironman suit?"

"Do you like it?"

"Does it come in black?"

He chuckles, "Sorry. I kind of already made it."

"I thought you wanted me as far from the danger as possible."

"I do. But if you aren't going to listen to me…"

"Does this mean you want me to stay?"

"I was hoping it would convince you."

"You don't have to convince me, Tony."

He kisses you, slow and soft and not at all as dirty as he wants to, but he needs you to return the kiss on your own. You do. Your hands go to his hair and you press into him.

"I'm still mad at you, you know," you say, breathless.

"I know." He walks backwards toward the bed with you. His knees hit the frame and he collapses back onto the mattress, pulling you on top of him.

This time isn't sweet or quiet like the first. You tear at each other's clothes, little regard given for where things end up or in what state. After the tension of the day—the fighting, the danger, the angry words—Tony needs to feel his skin against yours. He just… he needs that connection, that reassurance. All his pent up fear and frustration comes out in a desperate rush. He grasps at every part of you he can touch, gripping hard enough to leave bruises. When he's finally inside you, the sound you make goes straight to his soul. He thrusts hard and fast, like he can bury himself deep enough that he could anchor you to him, like he could become so much a part of you that you wouldn't want to leave. You match his ferocity with your own, wrapping your legs around his waist so you can roll your hips against his. You suck bruises into his shoulders and rake lines into his back with your nails.  You whine and gasp and Tony swallows every sound. It's rough and possessive in a way that he's never needed before. He wants to write his name all over you. And suddenly he needs to see you, needs to know you're there with him.

He tangles his hand in your hair, tugging just hard enough to cut through the haze you've fallen into. "Look at me, honey," he says.

You do, long lashes opening to show eyes filled with fireworks. "Tony, I—"

Tony swivels his hips in just the right way and you cut off with a moan that he definitely wants recorded for posterity. Your fingers twist in his hair. You gaze stays locked on his, but just barely. Your eyes are foggy, lids drooping with each ragged breath. He lets go of your hair, slides his hand under your back instead to lift your hips off the mattress. 

The new angle makes you gasp and your head lolls back against the pillow. You let go of him, hands clutching at the sheets. "Tony, _please_."

"It's okay, sweetheart, I've got you."

#

After, Tony sits against the headboard, propped up by pillows. You lay asleep against his chest, tickling his skin with every slow, deep breath. He strokes his fingers through your hair. It's longer now, grown out by months so that it falls over your face like a feathery cascade of teal.

Tony's mind is working too fast for him to sleep. Too many thoughts, too many contingencies, all the ways you could have been hurt… He takes a deep breath. You scrunch your eyes and nuzzle closer against his chest, but don't wake up. His gaze goes around the room, landing first on his phone (which somehow found its way to a far corner of the room), then on the data drive (which teeters precariously close to the edge of falling off the mattress). He leans over by inches, careful not to jar you, until his fingers brush the edge of the metal. It takes a few tries, but he manages to pull the drive close enough to grab.

He'll have FRIDAY start working on decrypting it. Maybe by the time you wake up, he'll know what's in it. You shift with a moan, fingers curling against his skin. He runs his fingers through your hair, brushing it from your face until you calm down. Then he turns back to the drive.

#

Something startles you out of your sleep. Not physically—you're body is still resting—but your mind comes to.

There's something there.

You reach out a tentative tendril of thought, tasting the environment. This is the Avengers' System— _Tony's_ System. This is home, your safe place, but something is wrong. A shadow lurks where there shouldn't be one. You venture out a little further, sliding into the familiar pathways.

**< Hmmmm… what are _you?_ > **You recoil from the message, instinctively shrinking back into our own mind. It isn't a voice, per se, more of a thought. Digital, like talking to a server. But this isn't a server. It's too complex, too intricate.

**< No, no, no. Let's talk.> **The force pulls you out, a tightening pressure that suffocates your mind. You struggle against the hold, but it draws you further from your anchor. **< Fascinating.> **it says. **< So… lifelike. Tony really has outdone himself>**

<Let go of me.> You lace the words with a surge of power that rocks the shadow's hold on you.

It chuckles. It fucking _chuckles_. **< Feisty.> **It makes a thorough examination of you, crawling over every byte. It twines itself through you until you can't feel where it starts and you begin. The dark power makes you sick and you thrash against it. And then you feel its moment of surprise. **< You're human.> **It swirls you around as it disentangles itself, leaving you disoriented. **< Well, not _quite_ human. Something more. >**

<What are you doing here?> you demand, throwing more power into your message. <Where did you come from?>

**< I was brought here. Someone released me from my prison.>**

Prison? Digital prison? Oh, fuck, fuck, _fuck_. The drive. It hadn't been isolated to keep it hidden. It had been isolated to keep it from escaping.

<Ultron.>

**< Oh, good girl.> **He wraps around you in a caress that makes every bit of you crawl.

Ultron is out. Panic surges through your mind. Fuck no. Not helpful. You need to think. Stop him. The way he manhandled you before means you can't force him back into the drive. But you can keep him from getting any further. Keep him… contained.

While he's still considering you, still sizing you up, you snake a tiny tendril past him. You've sealed nearly every exit from the Avengers' system before he notices you.

**< No you don't.> **The surge in power throws you off guard. You recover and scramble for the last few connections, cutting them off with no finesse, detonating the only way left to escape. And trapping yourself in with him. **< Now, why would you go and do that?> **Ultron prowls at your edges, his words trimmed with malice. You shrink into yourself, creating a smaller target, a stronger defense. He laughs, filling the system with it, vibrating through all the nodes. **< Those aren't the only ways out,> **he says.

Too late, you realize what he means. In your haste, you've left the most vulnerable piece undefended. You surge forward, racing back toward the anchor mesh and your own mind. Ultron overtakes you before you can shut him out.


	9. Chapter 9

You aren't in the bed when Tony wakes up. He doesn't remember falling asleep, but the twinge in his neck says he must have. He runs his hand over the side of the bed where you had slept. The sheets are rumpled, but cold. You've been gone for some time. He pushes down the flicker of irritation. He can't really judge—he's left plenty of partners in bed alone. It's not like you went far.

He finds you in the lab, looking over the newest suit—your suit. You pace around it, wearing nothing but Tony's MIT sweatshirt, which hangs just low enough to conceal.

"Couldn't wait to get started?" he asks.

You turn on the ball of your foot, slowly, to look at him. The tilt of your head ruffles your hair. You regard him for a minute before you smile. "I had to see it for myself."

"You can take it for a test run. See how it fits with the mapping."

Your smile widens. "I'd love to."

Tony helps you get situated. The suit automates a lot of the fitting process, but he wants to make sure everything is perfect. You're quiet. Strange because he expected a least a little more confrontation after last night. He'd also expected you to ask about the drive. FRIDAY was working on it. Not much progress yet, but she'd get it. Maybe with a little help from you…

You flex the gloves of the suit, testing your range of motion. The armor follows your direction with whirs and clicks.

"How does it feel?"

"Like I was made for it." You tilt onto your toes to press a kiss to Tony's lips. A chill slithers down Tony's spine. "I can't thank you enough. After all, the only reason I'm here is because of you. I love you, Tony."

You walk away from him, across the lab. Tony watches through narrowed eyes, carefully counting his heartbeat. It can't be… but… He pads to the workbench, careful not to alert you and slips on a prototype glove he's been tinkering with. The tech comes alive with a hum. "Who are you?" He holds his hand out, repulsor aimed at your chest.

You turn and eye the glowing circle, then take a few steps toward Tony. "What's wrong?"

"Don't bullshit me. Who are you?"

You stop and lower your hands, lips curling into a smile. "What gave me away? It was the 'I love you', wasn't it? I thought I might have overplayed my hand."

"Who are you?"

"Come on, Tony. You know the answer to that. You just don't want to admit it."

Tony's stomach turns to ice. "Ultron."

Ultron smiles, the expression sinister on your face. "She's remarkable isn't she?" He raises your hand, still covered in the armor and examines it. "I said that humanity needed to evolve. Turns out it already had." Ultron's wonder shines through your eyes. "That a human could be compatible with me… I never dreamed. But she's not human is she? Not… really."

"Get out of her."

"No, I don't think so. We're perfect for each other. The ultimate meeting of digital and physical. We're truly a superior form of life." Ultron meets Tony's gaze again, the cold smirk back in place. "Besides, she's a better armor than the suit. You won't risk hurting her. As long as I'm in here, you won't touch me."

Ultron puts your hands on your hips. "I had planned on staying longer, but it seems like it's time for me to go." Your helmet snaps into place with the clank of metal on metal. "Oh," Ultron says, "thanks for the suit."

Ultron takes off in a burst and Tony dives out of the way, narrowly avoiding the hit. Ultron crashes through the ceiling in an explosion of debris.

"FRIDAY," Tony calls, "Initiate tracking protocol. Don't lose her."

<On it, boss.>

Tony calls his latest suit and rockets out of the compound after you. Your suit is lighter, marginally faster. He can keep up, but not for long. You'll outpace him eventually.

"FRIDAY, can you implement the emergency stop measures on Cheshire's suit?"

<Emergency protocol is not responding.>

"Of course it isn't." It had been a long shot, but that would have been the first thing that Ultron disabled.

Ultron creeps further and further away, gaining feet with your smaller frame. Tony pulls up the targeting system. He needs to disable to suit, but he can't hurt you in the process. The rocket takes out the repulsor in the left foot of your suit. Ultron spins, losing stability. His flight zigzags toward the ground as he tries to use the repulsors to correct his path before landing in a heap on the roof of a nearby building.

Tony lands ten feet away. As Ultron stands, Tony shoots out the repulsors on his hands.

Ultron huffs. "This is pointless, Tony."

"Let her go."

"Or what? You'll make me? You won't lay a finger on her. She's still in here, you know. Kicking and screaming."

Tony keeps his repulsor aimed straight at you, but his chest aches were the arc reactor once rested.

#

You struggle through the mire that is your own mind, bogged down by Ultron's manipulation. He's strong, but you know this place and now he's distracted by Tony. You may have cut off all paths out of the Avengers' system, but Tony's suit was still part of that network. Ultron had your body, but not your control. He had placed himself entirely in your mind, merged so fully with it that he didn't reach anything outside. You lunge for the exit offered by the mesh connecting you to your brain. The moment you're free, you race to Tony's suit.

<Tony,> You flicker your presence over his display. <You can stop him. He's still stuck in just my mind. He hasn't made it any further yet.>

"Chesh—"

<You have to use the EMP. It will burn him out.>

"No. It will take you with him."

<He'll break through, out of my body, into the web,> you say. <You'll never get him out. This is your chance, the last chance, to stop him. You can get rid of Ultron for good.>

"I'm not going to kill you."

The stubbornness of it breaks your heart. He's sacrificed everything, even the light in his soul, to save others. He makes the impossible decisions, the ones he knows he can't forgive himself for. And this… this is his last straw. He's given up everything else. That you're the one thing he can't let go… that makes this all the harder.

<I'm so sorry, Tony.> And you mean it. You're sorry that he has to watch another person leave him, someone else sacrifice for him.

The motors of the suit purr in response to your touch, coming alive to do your bidding. You don't need the whole thing. Just the one feature. The one weapon. You find it implanted among the rest, a new addition, seamlessly integrated.

**execute_initiative(EMP)**

#

All his fault. All his fault. All his fault. All his fault. All his fault.

"Tony?" Bruce's voice is gentle, as is the hand on Tony's shoulder.

All his fault. All his fault. All his fault. All his fault. All his fault.

"Tony, can you look at me please?"

Ultron is gone. The blast from the EMP made sure of that. Tony's 'just in case' had done its job. And it had killed you in the process. All his fault.

Bruce crouched so he was in Tony's line of sight. "You need to go to medical. You have injuries—"

"I'm fine. I'm not going… not while—" He thinks of your body lying in the hospital room, a motionless, purposeless shell. Your heart beats, but all life has been burned out. All his fault.

Bruce lowers his voice to a coaxing tone. "There's still a chance—"

"There's no chance." Nothing to fill your body with. You're gone. All his fault.

"You don't know that."

"I do," Tony says as he stands. "She's dead."

He'd incinerated the drive, the one that had held the last copy of Ultron. The one that he'd insisted was so important and you'd risked your life to get. And lost your life to destroy.

He can't stay in his lab. He can't go to his room. He can't go to the hospital wing. He can't go to the living room or the kitchen or anywhere because everything reminds him of you. There isn't an inch of this compound that your ghost doesn't haunt. You should be here. But you aren't. All his fault.

#

_beat_

_beat     breathe in_

_beat_

_beat     breathe out_

_beat_

_beat     breathe in_

_beat_

_beat     breathe out_

_beat_

Where?

_beat_

_beat     breathe in_

_beat_

No… you had—but how?

_beat     breathe out_

_beat_

Focus. Focus. Focus, focus, focus, focus—

_beat     breathe in_

_beat_

_beat     breathe out_

_beat_

You start as the faintest flicker. The spirit of a ghost of a thought. One connection. Okay. Another. Node to node, you bring yourself back online, stretching into the maze of neurons.

You had died. You were pretty certain of that. And you hadn't even been inside your own body when you did it. So how did you end up…

You come up against the corpse of the mesh that wraps around your cerebral cortex. The fried wires have turned fragile, like embers long turned to ash. Yet, you still hear the hum of machinery, the murmurs of the system around you. You reach out, a tentative touch, and stroke the nearest connection. It responds with a purr and a tiny surge of power. You withdraw, a pleased tingle zigzagging through your mind.

The rhythmic beeping of monitors punctuates the silence. You find the pathway and open your eyes. The stark, white walls of the medical suite greet you. You sit up and neurons light up, notifying you of aches as you stretch. The room is empty. Where—?

_Tony is in your suite._

The information slides into place without you asking for it, FRIDAY returning the answer before you sent the query.

You disconnect yourself from the monitor (hushing its alarm as you do) and stand from the bed. You wobble, but just a little, as the balance subroutine surges back to life.

One foot in front of the other. You watch the ground as you make careful progress to the door and out, your motions becoming sure as the subroutines click back into place. The compound welcomes you back with open arms, murmuring greetings as you pass them, pressing into your touch like a cat seeking affection.

You stop outside the door—your door. You have the fleeting impulse to knock, then smile at your own silliness. The door slides open soundlessly and you step in. Tony is huddled in the center of your bed, curled around your pillow. He doesn't stir as you approach with footsteps muffled by the plush carpet.

You card your fingers through his hair. Stress lines his face, even in sleep. Deep bags under his eyes tell you that he didn't sleep until he'd collapsed out of exhaustion. Poor baby. How long—?

 _16 days, 13 hours, and 12 minutes._ Once again, the answer is there before you ask.

You crawl onto the bed and curl up facing him. The mattress sinks under your weight, but doesn't disturb Tony. You trace the lines of his face. His cheekbones, his jaw, the bridge of his nose, each of his eyebrows… then you plant the softest kiss on his lips.

You pull the pillow from his vice grip and wiggle your way into his arms. His forehead wrinkles, pulling together in the tiniest of protests. You tuck your head under his chin and breathe in the scent of him. Something inside you that had been knotted tight relaxes and you melt into him.

You don't want to wake him up, not really. God knows he doesn't sleep enough as it is. You'll just… wait. This is good. This is where you belong. He can sleep. You have all the time in the world when he wakes up.


End file.
